One Central development proposal includes transit center

[ThirdRailVision]

Front pages of local newspapers today boasted plans for a massive development site planned to be built over the 18th St. Metra Station by soldier field/ museum campus. Article links below.

One particularly interesting aspect of this project is the developer's plans for a massive transit center. They mention linking the Orange Line... I can't see how since Roosevelt is pretty west from this planned site!

From the Tribune: "One Central would create a massive transit center that would bring together CTA, Metra and Amtrak trains, as well as bus station and a bus or tram route on an existing access road along train tracks between the McCormick Place convention center and the Loop." 

From the Sun-Times: "Metra rail lines, Amtrak, the CTA Orange Line and a so-called “Chi-Line” along an under-used dedicated busway would all come together in one location. With trams or buses, Chicago would finally have its elusive downtown “circulator” linking McCormick Place, the Museum Campus, Navy Pier, Millennium Park and downtown hotels"

 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/ori/ct-biz-one-central-economic-impact-ryan-ori-20190416-story.html

https://chicago.suntimes.com/business/chicagoland-chamber-commerce-one-central-project-metra-soldier-field-museum-campus/

 

[NewFlyerMCI]

11 hours ago, ThirdRailVision said:

Front pages of local newspapers today boasted plans for a massive development site planned to be built over the 18th St. Metra Station by soldier field/ museum campus. Article links below.

One particularly interesting aspect of this project is the developer's plans for a massive transit center. They mention linking the Orange Line... I can't see how since Roosevelt is pretty west from this planned site!

From the Tribune: "One Central would create a massive transit center that would bring together CTA, Metra and Amtrak trains, as well as bus station and a bus or tram route on an existing access road along train tracks between the McCormick Place convention center and the Loop." 

From the Sun-Times: "Metra rail lines, Amtrak, the CTA Orange Line and a so-called “Chi-Line” along an under-used dedicated busway would all come together in one location. With trams or buses, Chicago would finally have its elusive downtown “circulator” linking McCormick Place, the Museum Campus, Navy Pier, Millennium Park and downtown hotels"

 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/ori/ct-biz-one-central-economic-impact-ryan-ori-20190416-story.html

https://chicago.suntimes.com/business/chicagoland-chamber-commerce-one-central-project-metra-soldier-field-museum-campus/

 

If The 78 doesn't get off the ground, I don't see this happening either

[Mr Downtown]

It appears that the developer's architecture team just looked at a transit map and decided that because they're next to a rail line, they could of course magically become the new transit hub of the region, with CTA, Metra BNSF, Metra Electric, and Amtrak trains all stopping there, and then a fleet of magic buses heading up the MPEA busway or Columbus to all the vital destinations like Millennium Park and Navy Pier.  But of course the riders on the Orange Line want to go to the Loop, not to 14th & Indiana. Same with the folks on the BNSF, and on Amtrak from Champaign or Memphis. 

Now there might be a logic to extending the Pink Line here, via tracks over or next to the St. Charles Air Line, to serve Soldier Field and this project.  But it isn't clear how you could have a turnout from the Alley L going east onto the SCAL ROW.  (Apparently the developer likes to call it an Orange Line extension because that makes it sound like a one-seat ride to Midway—even though it would require a cross-platform transfer at Roosevelt.)

[strictures]

1 hour ago, Mr Downtown said:

It appears that the developer's architecture team just looked at a transit map and decided that because they're next to a rail line, they could of course magically become the new transit hub of the region, with CTA, Metra BNSF, Metra Electric, and Amtrak trains all stopping there, and then a fleet of magic buses heading up the MPEA busway or Columbus to all the vital destinations like Millennium Park and Navy Pier.  But of course the riders on the Orange Line want to go to the Loop, not to 14th & Indiana. Same with the folks on the BNSF, and on Amtrak from Champaign or Memphis. 

Now there might be a logic to extending the Pink Line here, via tracks over or next to the St. Charles Air Line, to serve Soldier Field and this project.  But it isn't clear how you could have a turnout from the Alley L going east onto the SCAL ROW.  (Apparently the developer likes to call it an Orange Line extension because that makes it sound like a one-seat ride to Midway—even though it would require a cross-platform transfer at Roosevelt.)

If that crook Richie Daley & the CTA had used some foresight 25 years ago, they would've moved the South Side Mainline to the IC Mainline, just like the proposal was supposed to do so when they built the Dan Ryan Line. That was supposed to then go all the way to Kensington, with the IC then closing a lot of local stops. Then they could've used the Air Line to bring CTA trains to Soldier Field & the Field Museum.  But Daley used rebuilding the SSML as a way to buy the South Side reverends to support his reelection, even though both sections end in the middle of nowhere.  

Now that foolish decision of the mid 1990s is going to bite us in taxes bank with having to extend the now Red Line to 130th Street at at an obscene cost!