WBEZ | Union Station

Chicago dips a toe into ‘bus rapid transit’

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 18:13:00 -0500

Construction crews have begun work on what Chicago is billing as its first “bus rapid transit” route.

The Chicago Transit Authority project, funded almost entirely by an $11 million federal grant, will speed up buses along the South Side’s Jeffery Boulevard.

The CTA says buses there will get through stop lights more quickly and have their own lanes during rush hours. The buses will also have fancy stations spaced a half-mile apart with no stops between.

Joe Iacobucci, the CTA’s strategic-planning manager, said the crews began Monday. “They’re preparing those stations for new bus pads — they’re about a 60-foot length of concrete — and preparing the landscape for customer signage and bus shelters,” he said.

The CTA expects the upgrades to shave travel times. In northbound morning peak hours, for example, Iacobucci said the project will cut 7 minutes, enabling buses to complete the 16-mile route in 65 minutes.

BRT delivers many benefits of rail at a fraction of the cost. The most advanced systems are running in Bogotá, the Colombian capital, and Guangzhou, the Chinese city formerly known as Canton. More modest lines are up in Cleveland, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas and Eugene, Oregon.

Experts compare BRT systems using various criteria. The New York City-based Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, for example, grades systems using 30 factors.

The four factors the institute deems most important are all missing from the Jeffery Boulevard project. Those include barriers between bus and car lanes, use of the road’s central verge for the bus lanes, off-bus fare collection and platform-level boarding.

A BRT route downtown, planned for 2014 construction, will be more robust but extend just a mile, running from Union Station to North Michigan Avenue. That project, which includes a redesign of the station, has $24.6 million in federal funding and $7.3 million in local tax-increment financing.

A third BRT route would span a 21-mile stretch of Western or Ashland avenues. The city is studying alternatives for that project using a $1.6 million federal grant.

In 2008, Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration announced that Chicago was diving into BRT with a $153 million federal grant, but the city missed a crucial application deadline and forfeited the money.

Rahm Emanuel’s mayoral transition plan last year promised a “full bus rapid transit pilot” within three years.

Chicago announces master plan for Union Station

Thu, 24 May 2012 08:33:00 -0500

Chicago's main train station is being targeted with a master plan designed to increase its capacity and improve train passengers' experiences.

There have been a number of grand plans for Union Station, the nation's third-busiest after New York's Grand Central and Penn Stations. Past plans included tearing down existing buildings and building a new structure in their place.

On Wednesday, City Hall released a plan with short-term projects with identified funding. They include improved station entrances; expanded Amtrak waiting rooms; and enhanced bus lanes on streets around the station.

The plan says projects that might be delivered in five to 10 years include creating wider commuter platforms.

Chicago Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein says the number of trains serving Union Station may increase 40 percent by 2040, prompting the proposed changes.

$7.3 million OKed for downtown ‘bus rapid transit’

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:56:00 -0600

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration has decided to channel more than $7.3 million in tax increment financing toward a “bus rapid transit” line downtown, according to transportation and economic-development officials.

The money will combine with an announced $24.6 million from the Federal Transit Administration to speed up trips between Union Station, the Ogilvie Transportation Center, several Chicago Transit Authority lines, Streeterville and Navy Pier.

“About 50 percent of the commuters who come to work every day in Chicago’s central business district arrive by bus or train,” said Peter Skosey, vice president of the Metropolitan Planning Council, a nonprofit group working on the project. “If they’re getting off at those Metra stations in the West Loop, it’s quite a hike over to North Michigan Avenue or even just to State Street. So this really facilitates the use of transit for downtown Chicago.”

Bus rapid transit, known as BRT, delivers many benefits of rail at a fraction of the cost. The most advanced BRT systems have sprung up in Bogotá, Colombia; Guangzhou, China; Johannesburg, South Africa; and Ahmedabad, India.

BRT remains largely unknown in the United States. Modest systems are running in Cleveland, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas and Eugene, Oregon.

In 2008, Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration said it was moving on a BRT pilot project. But the city bungled an application for $153 million in federal funding for it.

Emanuel’s mayoral transition plan last year promised a “full bus rapid transit pilot” within three years. The pilot, according to the plan, will include “dedicated bus lanes, signal preemption, prepaid boarding or on-board fare verification, multiple entry and exits points on the buses, limited stops, and street-level boarding.”

The Chicago Department of Transportation is keeping lips tight about its design of the downtown line, known as both the “East-West Transit Corridor” and “Central Loop BRT.” It’s not clear the design will include many of the timesavers listed in Emanuel’s plan. A CDOT plan announced in 2010 would remove cars from some traffic lanes, rig key stoplights to favor the buses, improve sidewalks, install bicycle lanes and build specially branded bus stops equipped with GPS-powered “next bus” arrival signs.

The CTA, meanwhile, has a separate $1.6 million federal grant to plan BRT options along a 21-mile stretch of Western Avenue. Another $11 million from the feds is funding bus improvements this year along the South Side’s Jeffrey Boulevard. That line, though billed as BRT, will lack many features for speeding up trips.

Union Station train collision sends at least 12 passengers to the hospital

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:09:00 -0500

At least a dozen people suffered injuries and have been taken to area hospitals after two commuter trains collided, with one derailing, at Chicago's Union Station, city emergency officials said Friday morning.

A spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department says one of the trains derailed, but he didn't have any details. Metra spokesman Tom Miller says the collision occurred at about 8:15 a.m. Friday, but that to his knowledge no trains derailed. The crash involved a Burlington Northern commuter train from Aurora and an Amtrak train heading to Carbondale.

Spokesmen for the rail lines and the fire department say the two trains collided as a train on Metra's Burlington Northern line was coming into the station and the Amtrak train was leaving for Carbondale at about 8:15 a.m.

There was initial confusion about the location of the crash, with first responders arriving just north of the crash, which occurred under the Old Chicago Main Post Office on Congress Parkway.

Passengers, some complaining of head and neck injuries, had to evacuate through tunnels spanning almost four blocks. Officials said at least one person may have broken ribs and that there were two pregnant women that were in stable condition.

Metra board member Jack Schaffer was on the scene when a Metra train collided with a truck last month in suburban Mount Prospect. He said, "The train on train accident is unusual. Although I will tell you and I say this with some reluctance, we still are on high alert out for terrorism."

Spokesmen for both lines would not comment on which train caused the collision.

An investigation is underway.

--The Associated Press contributed to this article.