CTA rail station rehabs and renew crews

[RJL6000]

Also when you look at the Fullerton/Red project, part of the project was to restore the old station house. I don't think they could've installed an elevator at the end without drastically changing the station house. The way the station was constructed, although controversial, it would have to be built the way it was, unless they want elevators at the south end, which wouldn't make sense.

In the end, the original 1900-built station houses ended up being moved across the street at both Fullerton and Belmont (to the north side of the street; they were originally on the south side of the street) and converted to farecard-only auxiliary entrances (which remain non-handicapped-accessible). The main entrances to both stations (which are ADA-compliant) are in completely new buildings on the site of the old station houses.

[Busjack]

In the end, the original 1900-built station houses ended up being moved across the street at both Fullerton and Belmont (to the north side of the street; they were originally on the south side of the street) and converted to farecard-only auxiliary entrances (which remain non-handicapped-accessible). The main entrances to both stations (which are ADA-compliant) are in completely new buildings on the site of the old station houses.

That's what I thought. In any event, they would have had to condemn even more land if the platforms would have had to be relocated entirely south of Belmont or one direction or the other of Fullerton, instead of being rebuilt centered over those streets.

In any event, IIRC, the plans for the stations indicated that there had to be a certain turning radius provided for wheelchairs, although having the elevators in the middle of the platform complicates that.

[Stupid Sexy Flanders]

This is somewhat true if you look at the Pink line's Damen and Western stops. Western is much wider than Damen. I don't know if Damen's 12 feet, (it might be a little wider) but's it's close. As far as Granville, you would have to take into consideration that that is a 1983 project. ADA standards could have changed in the last 25-30 years. Also when you look at the Fullerton/Red project, part of the project was to restore the old station house. I don't think they could've installed an elevator at the end without drastically changing the station house. The way the station was constructed, although controversial, it would have to be built the way it was, unless they want elevators at the south end, which wouldn't make sense. One way you can buy space with elevators on a narrow platform is to install the elevator to the side of the platform if the platform is the island type. (in the center) I believe this was done at the Cermak-Chinatown stop. This would have to be done to stations like Irving Park blue, which is similar but even more narrow.

I've never used the Pink Line stops you mentioned, so I can't comment on those (save for looking at their chicago-l.org profiles) but regarding Granville, the stop isn't compliant by any old standards; the ADA didn't become law until 1990. (The reason it got an elevator is because it became the standard for rapid transit stations by the early 1980's; it's for the same reason stations on the O'Hare extension got elevators when they opened).

No minimum width for island or side platforms is specified per the ADA; for island platforms, it is by default the minimum width necessary to have accessible paths at least 4 feet wide; to have such a path on each side of an island platform would mandate a theoretical minimum of just over 8 feet (which allows for sufficient radii for 180 degree turns, which require 5 feet in width, which would be the theoretical minimum for side platforms), but such a narrow platform width would be ridiculous by any standard. But it's for these two reasons that island platforms as narrow as the one at Granville can be part of an ADA compliant station.

Regarding Fullerton/Belmont, I don't think that building new island platforms of the same width as before would have eliminated demolition in the area (especially with platform extensions to accommodate 10-car trains), but it's my feeling that the Hayes-Healy Athletic Center could have been saved by keeping platforms at their original width (the station footprint wouldn't have had to expand further east). And it's possible that the original stationhouse could have been preserved at its original location, much in the same manner as the original headhouse 1/2 mile south of Fullerton at Armitage, with the wide open area behind the old headhouse itself.

Regarding the IP Blue Line stop, I don't think enough room exists in the station footprint for even a side elevator a la Cermak-Chinatown, as the IP platform I believe is no more than 11 feet wide; I would think that it would require putting an elevator in place of the stairway on the north side of Irving Park, with fare controls in the stationhouse relocated to platform level (fare controls could take up some of the footprint of the existing platform, which I believe is well over 8 cars long, to connect with Pulaski). The same could work with an elevator at the south end of the Montrose station, where fare controls are already at platform level.

[Stupid Sexy Flanders]

That's what I thought. In any event, they would have had to condemn even more land if the platforms would have had to be relocated entirely south of Belmont or one direction or the other of Fullerton, instead of being rebuilt centered over those streets.

In any event, IIRC, the plans for the stations indicated that there had to be a certain turning radius provided for wheelchairs, although having the elevators in the middle of the platform complicates that.

Actually, now that I have a closer look neither Belmont nor Fullerton were rebuilt centered over their namesake streets; the north end of all four platforms are directly above the current location of the old stationhouses. So, based on existing platform alignment, the main entrance could have easily been put on the north side of the street, preserved the historic stationhouses in their original locations on the south side of said streets, and have allowed for platform-end elevators on the north side of the street in what could have been the main entrance.

Regarding the turning radius issue, the space required for that is a 5x5 foot square, but it doesn't have to be available at every location on the platform, but does need to be distributed throughout it. Accessible paths of at least 4 feet in width are needed to connect the "squares."

[BusHunter]

Actually, now that I have a closer look neither Belmont nor Fullerton were rebuilt centered over their namesake streets; the north end of all four platforms are directly above the current location of the old stationhouses. So, based on existing platform alignment, the main entrance could have easily been put on the north side of the street, preserved the historic stationhouses in their original locations on the south side of said streets, and have allowed for platform-end elevators on the north side of the street in what could have been the main entrance.

Regarding the turning radius issue, the space required for that is a 5x5 foot square, but it doesn't have to be available at every location on the platform, but does need to be distributed throughout it. Accessible paths of at least 4 feet in width are needed to connect the "squares."

If they put the main entrance at Fullerton/Red on the north side the stationhouse on the south side would become the main entrance by default even though it's not. The flow of the station uses the EB buses for boarding at the station WB for exiting the station. What would happen is people would not cross the street to board, they would use the old stationhouse. I'd also say at Fullerton the Depaul traffic would most likely use the south entrance as well. Then also you would have to take into account the old stationhouse only uses 3 or 4 turnstyles. That would easily get overwhelmed with the high traffic the station now gets. So basically you would have an overwhelmed south entrance designed in 1900 versus the new north side main entrance with 1/4 to 1/2 the customers.

If you look at Irving Pk/Brown line it sort of has a design fault on the same basis. The south entrance is exit only, so when an EB bus shows up it leaves all the customers crossing the street. That's why they installed the traffic light. Something should have been done to at least give those customers a chance to board on the south side. Same has been done at Addison/Brown. Here it's even more dangerous. Someone in a wheelchair could argue the point of how are they to cross the street, there is no crosswalk ,traffic lights, ADA accessible sidewalk ramps or anything. The problem however does not exist at Montrose/Brown line or Diversey because it's stationhouse has crossed the street. At Armitage/Brown the problem is addressed by having the bus stop at Sheffield, not at the station.

As far as the blue line 1970's stations going accessible. IP blue line, if they in fact need 4 feet of space beside an elevator, would be very difficult to design. The only way I see an elevator at the end would be to cut the stairway width in half and possibly push it closer to the street winding it's way to it's current terminus and put the elevator shaft right between the two staircases. I don't think an elevator only exit is the solution there. It may just be smarter to rebuild a stationhouse on the North side like they did at Cermak-Chinatown. Addison/Blue would have some of the same issues due to the narrow platform. Montrose/Blue would be easier because it's platform is more wide. That may be why they worked on the Dan Ryan ones first, they are easier to build as most stations there have wider platforms.

[Stupid Sexy Flanders]

If they put the main entrance at Fullerton/Red on the north side the stationhouse on the south side would become the main entrance by default even though it's not. The flow of the station uses the EB buses for boarding at the station WB for exiting the station. What would happen is people would not cross the street to board, they would use the old stationhouse. I'd also say at Fullerton the Depaul traffic would most likely use the south entrance as well. Then also you would have to take into account the old stationhouse only uses 3 or 4 turnstyles. That would easily get overwhelmed with the high traffic the station now gets. So basically you would have an overwhelmed south entrance designed in 1900 versus the new north side main entrance with 1/4 to 1/2 the customers.

What you describe above would be 100% true if the main and auxiliary entrances at Fullerton were flip-flopped, as most of the trip generators served by Fullerton station are all on the south side of the street, or further south. However (and I apologize if I didn't make this clear enough), the discussion was a "what if" had the ADA-compliant renovation of Fullerton had been done with platforms of the same width as pre-renovation.

In this situation, barring the stairways being extremely narrow, there would be no way of having vertical access/egress in the middle of such a narrow platform and still have the station be ADA-compliant, so there would be no entrance on the south side of Fullerton. The original stationhouse still could have remained on the south side of the street and renovated, and perhaps put to adaptive commercial reuse; maybe as a reincarnation of Demon Dogs or something of the like.

Any auxiliary entrance/exit would have to be at the south end of the platform at Belden, which could be an option for many coming from DePaul. Relocate the EB stop from under the 'L'to a far side stop at Sheffield, and you resolve the bus to 'L' transfer issue without encouraging jaywalking under the 'L' (same as EB buses at Armitage).

If you look at Irving Pk/Brown line it sort of has a design fault on the same basis. The south entrance is exit only, so when an EB bus shows up it leaves all the customers crossing the street. That's why they installed the traffic light. Something should have been done to at least give those customers a chance to board on the south side. Same has been done at Addison/Brown. Here it's even more dangerous. Someone in a wheelchair could argue the point of how are they to cross the street, there is no crosswalk ,traffic lights, ADA accessible sidewalk ramps or anything. The problem however does not exist at Montrose/Brown line or Diversey because it's stationhouse has crossed the street. At Armitage/Brown the problem is addressed by having the bus stop at Sheffield, not at the station.

Totally agree with you on the issue at the IP Brown Line station, especially since, unlike 1/2 mile to the south at Addison, there would have been plenty of room to have the main stationhouse on the south side of Irving Park.

In all fairness though, I think the reasons no such crossing was put at Addison were the following reasons:

- A signalized crossing at the segment of Ravenswood Avenue on the west side of the viaduct, meaning that no one would have to walk/wheel too far away from the station to access a signalized crossing

- Addison is just plain narrower than Irving Park, and thus easier to cross without traffic controls (I've done this a couple times before with my manual chair, but power chair users are SOL and have to cross at Ravenswood).

As far as the blue line 1970's stations going accessible. IP blue line, if they in fact need 4 feet of space beside an elevator, would be very difficult to design. The only way I see an elevator at the end would be to cut the stairway width in half and possibly push it closer to the street winding it's way to it's current terminus and put the elevator shaft right between the two staircases. I don't think an elevator only exit is the solution there. It may just be smarter to rebuild a stationhouse on the North side like they did at Cermak-Chinatown. Addison/Blue would have some of the same issues due to the narrow platform. Montrose/Blue would be easier because it's platform is more wide. That may be why they worked on the Dan Ryan ones first, they are easier to build as most stations there have wider platforms.

Regarding the narrow-platformed 1970's era stations on the Blue Line, I'd say elevators could definitely fit at Irving Park and especially Montrose, though it would take some really creative design work to make one fit at Addison.

At Montrose, it would simply involve putting an elevator in the south stationhouse, and removing the escalator, to allow access from the elevator at platform level to the platform itself. At Irving Park, I don't see any other option other than having an elevator replace the northernmost stairway on Irving Park, with the main fare controls relocated to what is currently the north edge of the platform, serving patrons using entrances on each side of Irving Park.

I think the fact that the Dan Ryan stations have wider platforms did play a role in their getting renovated before the Kennedy stations, but keep in mind that the Dan Ryan line is the whole of the S. Side branch of the Red Line, whereas the median stations from the first Kennedy extension are only one of 5 clusters of station design along the O'Hare branch. (2 subways, 2 Kennedy extensions, and the Logan Square elevated) I could be completely wrong, but from a superficial perspective, that seems to be it.

[BusHunter]

There finally starting to renew Belmont/Blue line now. They starting cleaning up a few bricks on the station walls and have installed metal tubing for the lights on the subway station walls. Looks like the end result will be the same as Logan Square.

[Busjack]

...

I use a lightweight titanium manual chair, which, after some adjustments I made to it while I still lived in Chicago, at a mere 2 ft in width from pushrim to pushrim, now fits on every "up" escalator in the system save for those at North/Clybourn (at least as of June of this year, when I moved to Seattle). I've scared a number of customer assistants while doing so (hey, it's not like you see a guy in a wheelchair on an escalator everyday), but in situations when an elevator is out, filled with human waste, or nonexistent at said station, I often don't have other good options. Plus, oftentimes, the escalator is just simply more convenient.

...

FoxChicago ran this story* about a woman's wheelchair flipping on an MBTA escalator. That reminded me of this thread, but it appears that doing this isn't such a good thing.

______

*Of course, the story here was only the wheelchair, not the T camera program.

[Stupid Sexy Flanders]

FoxChicago ran this story* about a woman's wheelchair flipping on an MBTA escalator. That reminded me of this thread, but it appears that doing this isn't such a good thing.

______

*Of course, the story here was only the wheelchair, not the T camera program.

It's not a bad idea as long as you do it properly.........personally, I don't know why she was holding onto only one of the railings, instead of both (unless she had gotten well acclimated to said escalator), and I feel she may have improperly positioned her wheels on the steps, causing the fall to happen as soon as the escalator went up.

It's a skill I find extremely liberating, especially when the elevator I'd need is out of service, and far more dignified than wading through a pool of some homeless guy's urine in said elevator, especially if I'm trying get somewhere (e.g. a job interview) where I can't afford to be smelling like human waste.

For a visual demonstration on how this works, if I haven't posted this before, just check out the following links:

[Busjack]

Sun-Times article that as part of Refresh and Renew, CTA announced a new “Goodbye, Grime” campaign, but random riders were not impressed.

[Busjack]

Austin Green Line rehab approved (press release).

[Jstange059]

10% plans for the Austin green line station from 2016 (starting page 81). Don't know much it may have changed since these were produced, but should be able to give you some idea of the work being done

840968083.pdf