3.5 Mil...for what ???

[trainman8119]

News blurb on the  Channel 7 website today noting that the CTA is going to spend $3.5 million for a study to expand the Skokie Swift, the Dan Ryan and Midway lines. How many times are we going to "study" this. This is old news. When the Midway and Dan Ryan lines were built, this was in the plans all along...just like when the Milwaukee line was extended to Jeff Park...it was understood that the line would go to O'Hare. I mean, there is already orange sineage for Ford City !!!!!

I guess somebody's brother needs a contract. Or Frank just needs a new way to waste a few million on things that are already known.

[Kevin]

The money is for alternative analysis, a required step for receiving federal funding.

[Busjack]

Yep, the alternatives analysis is required by the TEA laws to prioritize federal funding. (See the FTA New Starts Planning page). It appears that all the current bill did was earmark federal funds for various studies, but did not allocate much of any money to build them. For instance, I have been following the NICTD West Lake Corridor project (because I grew up near the service area). Some of the reporting saved on Wikipedia at first indicated that this was a high prority project, but later reports indicate not. Also, the study had to propose a "modal" (i.e. bus) alternative, even though NICTD isn't in the bus business (and the South Shore has not been in the bus business since the Insull days).

What has some community groups' goat is that these studies are just being funded now, while the first stage of the Circle Line study has been completed. If you look at the public comment databases, there were a number of public comments about that study being done before the Red Line one, indicating that CTA was fast-tracking that while ignoring the 30-year-old Red Line proposal, which would meet a community need. [P.S. I see that Ask Carole has an update on this, now taking the position that the South Side is entitled to some equity, even though it doesn't have as many people with Internet access hitting her blog.]

I guess the answer is that the feds are the ones blowing the taxpayers' money on studies, and you need someone like Alaska's senator to actually get funding for a project, such as his "Bridge to Nowhere."

However, it might be that the alternatives survey for the Orange Line demonstrates that it is unncessary, due to adequate bus service being provided by 54B and Pace. Unless there are big traffic generators at Ford City, Daley College, and environs, the main benefit would be in allowing Pace to cut out 30 minutes per run on 379, 382, 383, 384, and 385, by terminating them at Ford City rather than Midway.

What I would complain about locally is all of the transit agencies (Metra included) complaining about the lack of a "capital bill" in Springfield to provide the matching funds, but not telling their legislators to cooperate with the Republicans in getting the 60% vote to pass it. That is Frank's recent reason for why the slow zones are not being fixed (according to the Tribune). All of the agencies are relying on a legislative promise that "federal funds will not be left on the table."

[trainman8119]

Any way you slice it, it still sounds like some unnecessary spending of money.

Let me throw another iron on the fire....Considering that the CTA cannot afford to maintain what Frank calls "an aging system" (a very scholarly statement), as outlined in today's Sun-Times front page article, can't or won't budget to fix slow zones, etc...is it wise for the CTA to even consider expanding, when they can't even keep up on what they have now ???? Considering how the Brown Line project has skyrocketed in cost (for whatever reason, legit or not), will any cost analysis be accurate in an expansion project...and would any "study" address this subject ????

[Busjack]

Well, we can agree on that point. Carole took a heavy blasting on her worthless blog about that one, with her having given or been given worthless information about the slow zones on the Red Line being fixed in 2006 (apparently the complainers meant the Howard and CTA meant the Dan Ryan). While the Pink Line construction seemed decently managed, the Brown Line (and its effects on the Red) have not.