Tcmetro

Ravenswood was the third busiest non-downtown Metra station (after Route 59 and Naperville) in 2018, so I imagine Peterson-Ridge will be quite successful. Rogers Park was the 26th busiest station, which is still above average for Metra. For high-paid downtown workers, the direct access to the West Loop outweighs the fare difference. The Brown/Purple Line is a roughly 30-35 minute ride to Wells St, while Metra is only 15-20 mins.

Thanks for the article. There was news a few days ago that the Peterson-Ridge station has been delayed yet again: https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/04/27/metras-new-edgewater-station-delayed-yet-again-as-city-nixes-transit-agencys-green-groundwater-plan/

It depends on if or when ridership recovers, but the idea for the Brown Line flyover is to increase frequency down from 3 mins to 2 mins or even less at peak. CTA has stated the new signal system on the O'Hare branch will support 90 second headways, but I'm inclined to believe there's a lot of other operational challenges in the way of making that a reality. One of the issues is that CTA will be constructing a new yard as part of the 130th St extension, so there will still be a lot of trains coming through the south side to provide extra service on the north side. Here's the capacit

Purple is max six cars, there's two or three stations on the Evanston branch that can't accommodate an eight car train.

The service gaps get quite bad and it's mostly a combination of CTA reducing headways over the years combined with ever increasing traffic on the streets. Even when the bus is on time, it takes at least three times longer than driving. Late buses and missed connections just make that worse. The unreliability of the system means that most people don't want to put up with it. There's a few things that CTA can do to make the system more efficient: 1. All door boarding - requires CTA to accept that there will be some fare evasion. 2. Stops every quarter mile - will be diffic

I believe when the L was originally constructed, a majority of the property owners had to agree to allow it to be built above the street. It was easier to just purchase the ROW and build in the alley. I don't think the CTA would face the same challenges today (because it's now a governmental entity), but there hasn't been a serious proposal to build anything like that in decades anyways.

The bus fleet in Shenzhen, China is completely electric and it numbers about 16,000. West Coast cities seem to be making the most inroads on electric operations. AVTA (Palmdale/Lancaster, CA) is almost entirely electric. Los Angeles Metro should have 100 electrics in service this year and King County Metro in Seattle should have 123 electrics in service this year. The new Gillig model is probably going open up more fleets to become electric. The new transportation plan that the Biden administration is pushing calls for billions of dollars to be invested in electric vehicles and has

It's a relic of the streetcar days, in which cars ran Cermak-Kedzie-25th-Lawndale. Somewhat interesting, as Chicago doesn't have a lot of strange routing decisions from streetcar operations like a lot of other cities do. There was also a Rockwell-25th-Lawndale line which was discontinued by 1910. http://irm-cta.org/RouteDescriptions/RouteHistories/PreCTA/SouthernStreetRyHistory.pdf

The Pace services on the CTA map haven't been updated. There's a number of routes that were suspended at that time, also the 330 was rerouted to stop at Rosemont.

They actually started buying Gilligs in 2019, but Nova's will be a new addition. It looks like electric Novas are only running or on order in Montreal, Vancouver, York Region ON, and Brampton ON. Milwaukee will be the first US customer of the electric LFS.

It could refer to United Motor Coach. "In 1975 United Motor Coach became publicly owned Nortran (North Suburban Mass Transit District), and in 1991 became Pace Northwest Division." https://www.chicagorailfan.com/rtaphist.html

I was on the Cermak bus the other day and they just had a box on the front wheelwell.

Purchase agreements for bus shelters and pylon signs will come before the board at the Feb 17 meeting. https://www.pacebus.com/sites/default/files/2021-02/Public Notice Pace Board Meeting Agenda February 17 2021.pdf

Supposedly the contract was through 2026, but now that it has been delayed with the first buses coming in 2022, I think it could be extended to 2027. They were saying 100 buses per year before.

I'm hoping the next orders go to New Flyer or Proterra. It would be cool to see Nova artics also though.