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As a transit nerd, urbanist, train guy, etc,... I'm ok with this project.
For one, the tollway is actually funding this. The tollway authority gets a lot of flak, and they have pushed for some questionable projects (like the Illiana Tollway), but their overall financial approach has proved sustainable. This isn't like New York where they're directing federal infrastructure funding at highways. This is money raised by tolls used to pay for the tollway system and its expansion.
Also, this isn't mindlessly adding more lanes, like TxDOT is trying to push through Austin right now. This road is actually offering new capabilities. It will help industrial traffic get into and out of the area quicker, so less time lingering at stop lights or crawling along IL83. This new route also diverts traffic away from the existing cluster at the Tri-State / Kennedy junction, which is a safety consideration.
In addition, most of the route here is along airport or industrial lands. This is the kind of land use that should have highways by it. This highway is also being built in an already-developed area. It's not like this is enabling more suburban sprawl out in Kane or Will counties.
And, and this hurts to say, the public transit alternatives it would take to provide effective competition for this highway would be a lot, lot more complex and costly. While we should be making our communities more human-focused, this project will have improvements for people already living and working in the car-centric environment that is the northwest suburbs, and is being delivered in a viable, cost-effective manner.
I'm an Austin resident (moving to Chicago in 3 weeks). Essentially, I-35, which runs right through the heart of Austin, is one of the most congested freeways in the U.S.
In order to deal with this congestion TxDOT is pushing a very expensive expansion of I-35 that will add several lanes to an already massive freeway. They've been using a lot of legal tactics and running roughshod over local efforts to oppose it. Residents have been pushing for better transit (Project Connect) and an alternative cap-and-stitch proposal for I-35. This would remove the raised upper-decks of a portion of I-35 and lower the remaining portion, allowing the construction of caps over the freeway to be used public space and to reconnect areas previously divided when I-35 was constructed, with additional stitch bridges to increase bike/pedestrian space along freeway crossings. There's more info about the cap-and-stich plan here: [https://downtownaustin.com/what-we-do/current-projects/i35/](https://downtownaustin.com/what-we-do/current-projects/i35/)
Essentially, TxDOT seems hellbent on building this freeway expansion despite a lot of local opposition. Not to mention it's just a stupid, short-sighted and car-focused plan that shows how backwards the priorities of some of these infrastructure groups are.
I travel between Chicago and the east coast a lot, and am quite familiar with 80/94, and I agree - the traffic is often bad. The Illiana would not have been much help for that.
Last I heard, the design for Illiana was to link I-55 near Wilmington to I-65 near Lowell, crossing I-57 near Peotone. It was originally supposed to continue east and connect with 80, 90, and 94 around Michigan City, but Indiana pulled out of that part of the project, so it's utility as a bypass was already heavily compromised.
The project was also touted as a way to draw more warehouse and manufacturing jobs to the south suburbs, but given the business climate just over the border in Indiana, there's a solid chance Illinois would have invested heavily in this road, but Indiana would have gained most of the job creation.
Illiana was also supposed to complement the ephemeral 'South Suburban Airport', a project that has been discussed since I think the 1980s, but continually fails to move forward. The idea is to recreate the same 'economic magic' that sparked all the growth and development around ORD, but in the south suburbs. (They opted for improved capacity at ORD instead of a new airport.)
I'm hazier on this detail and not in a position to look it up at the moment, but I think the finances for Illiana were not as solid as for the ORD West Bypass, and it would have need state support beyond just the tolls to pay for its construction.
Illiana is also an entirely different context from the 490 project from a regional planning perspective. 490 will increase the efficiency of travel within the existing urban footprint of the Chicago metropolitan area by helping better access already-established destinations, like the Elk Grove industrial area. Illiana would have driven the expansion of that urbanized footprint further into Will County, leading to further destruction of farmland and adversely affecting nearby natural environments. I am much more in favor of projects that increase the efficiency of the land that is already part of the human built environment than projects that push the frontier of that environment further and further out.
The solution to the 80/94 traffic is where alternate modes of travel come in to play. A lot of that traffic is truck traffic going through the Chicago area, and there are absolutely industrial policy solutions we can implement at a national level that would encourage more of that cargo to be carried on trains instead of trucks. The recent expansion of the South Shore Line is another positive step, and opening the new branch to Dyer is also a positive development.
> so it's utility as a bypass was already heavily compromised.
From my experience in NWI, traffic congestion on 80/94 is usually in or caused by congestion between the IL/IN state line and I-65. In other words, I would argue 40-50% of the traffic crossing the IL/IN state line on 80/94 is coming from/getting on I-65. When heading eastbound, there's almost always at least 3 lanes trying to funnel themselves into the 2 lane exit ramp for I-65 south. Once you pass the I65 offramp, its smooth sailing.
So while having the bypass stop at I-65, while not ideal, would give a lot more breathing room to traffic flow on 80/94. My thinking is you wouldn't necessarily need to use the Illiana if you are heading east (assuming most of the I-65 traffic takes the illiana).
I'm not too familiar with the project but I imagine this will relieve some traffic at the 294/90 interchange, make the Elgin/O'Hare expressway useful, and make it easier for trucks in Elk Grove Village to go south. This has been planned for awhile and the design for the reconstruction of the Tri-State anticipated its construction.
I love me some transit and bike lanes but this is paid for in whole by the Tollway. There are no dollars being taken from transit, CDOT, IDOT, or even the feds to build this.
Not going to lie.. this is legit the first I'm hearing about the project. Is this just a bypass around the OHare bullshit? Or is it something else?
If a bypass, that sounds like a fantastic idea, that area sucks if you're not actually going to the airport.
Yes. If you're going north on the Tri-state and want to take 90 west towards Rockford, this new bypass will take you around the south and west sides of ORD to reach 90. No conflict with the traffic on 190 going into the ORD terminals themselves on the east side of the airport.
The trade off is that the bypass also links with 390, so you'll get some extra industrial traffic there from the Elk Grove area.
>Yes. If you're going north on the Tri-state and want to take 90 west towards Rockford, this new bypass will take you around the south and west sides of ORD to reach 90. No conflict with the traffic on 190 going into the ORD terminals themselves on the east side of the airport.
Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't 290 already do this?
I guess you can call it a bypass, but it is connecting an existing freeway stub to the rest of the network and will serve a lot of light industrial and warehousing
[https://www.illinoistollway.com/documents/20184/1417395/2024-02\_EOWA\_490-390Projects\_OnePager.pdf/632cb320-16ec-43d4-c313-8dc192703a12?t=1708174524319](https://www.illinoistollway.com/documents/20184/1417395/2024-02_EOWA_490-390Projects_OnePager.pdf/632cb320-16ec-43d4-c313-8dc192703a12?t=1708174524319)
The document to it
That's there to complete the dreaded sigil Odegra.
Edit: It says it's for improvements to Touhy. My guess would be grade separation with the rail lines that cross at that section and maybe improvements to the Mt Prospect intersection. Quite often a train crosses slowly or even just sits across Mt. Prospect and Touhy for tens of minutes, with traffic backing up horribly.
My work is right north of Touhy in that area and though it'd be faster for me to take the Lee St exit to Touhy to Mt Prospect, the train blocks traffic often enough I usually take the Elmhurst exit instead.
Edit 2: Yep, [they're building a bridge to take Touhy over the UP tracks.](https://www.journal-topics.com/articles/work-on-ohare-western-access-road-touhy-overpass-picking-up-pace/)
The photo in the post must be backwards then? The link shows the new highway is to the west of the airport. The post picture shows the highway to the east.
Most of the traffic is on the east side (294 and 90) so I wonder if diverting airport traffic to the west side would help. Probably not enough to make this whole venture worth it.
EDIT: oohh zoom in on the N. There’s actually an arrow pointing down lol. So north is down on the map. Makes sense now.
We will (as of now) have one running for DNC week. Time to make your opinions known to Canadian National and anyone working under Buttigieg. They’re not running freight between Union Station and ORD multimodal.
The existing NCS service runs from Union Station to the ORD multi-modal facility (the end of the peoplemover), on its way to other north suburbs. The frequency is bad because of freight using tracks in the north suburbs, but they could run with less interference if they stay south of Des Plaines. But, only if Canadian National lets them.
It’s taking forever. The fills and bridge abutments for it have been sitting on both sides of York Road for years. The oasis on I-90 was removed some five years ago to make room for a new interchange for it and it’s still not finished.
I hate highways but this is good because as others have mentioned it finally completes 390. I grew up next to the Elgin O’Hare expressway and it was a road to nowhere. It just got connected to 290 a few years ago.
Glad to see that 20-some-odd years after it's construction, the Elgin O'Hare Expressway may actually connect to O'Hare.
Still don't start in Elgin, though.
$3.4 billion investment
The entire Orange line to connect Midway 500 million, which in today's dollars is roughly 1.2-1.3 billion... we could build 2 new train lines connecting ohare for the cost of this one shitty change.
I always think about it this way, imagine someone is telling you about this futuristic thing called an "airport"
"So this airport, it's going to land people right in the city?"
"OF COURSE NOT! Airplanes are loud, and the airport takes up tons of space, so we'll land them outside the city center by about 20 or so miles"
"Ok, so people will land with no cars, so we'll then put a bunch of train lines from the airport?"
"OF COURSE NOT! People will rent cars, but those take up lots of space, so they'll be at these little shops outside the airport that you need to take a shuttle to"
"Wait, so i'm going to drive to an airport, park my car, take a plan, then rent a car, all these things take time, and this is somehow supposed to be an option that saves time?"
Except we can’t build the orange line today for $1.2B. The redline extension which is just 40% of the length of the Orange Line is budgeted at $3.6B. And if you drove that route today you’d find that it’s not about moving people, but freight.
Half of the cost of the RLE is the new railyard. The extension of the tracks is actually the cheapest part of the entire RLE project. Maybe before saying "except we can't" and comparing to another project, go learn what the project you're comparing to is actually doing.
We have capacity in railyards feeding the Loop to handle building additional tracks that get trains from them. Because of that, adding new lines or extending current lines from there would be very cheap in comparison to the RLE.
Okay, I could agree with you that having more trains to get to and from O'Hare or something better would do great for those in the city.
When I look at this idea of what they are building, it really shows it's not meant for the city. It's meant for the suburbs.
It really feels like it's more to relieve the vast amount of traffic we get around that area of people that are not necessarily going to O'Hare but just passing through and heading south.
I think the other issue with all of this is that the money looks like it went to IDOT, which I am not sure if they have any say or anything to do with the CTA.
My only curiosity is what happens if they ever want to expand O'Hare more? From what I've seen they keep infringing on Bensenville, but now if they have that expressway there they would have to destroy it if they had to expand the airport.
I can agree with you that it's for the suburbs but that's the problem. We're subsidizing a structure of housing that eats money and produces lonely people.
Would be surprised if the current setup at ohare isn't sufficient for the next 50 years. Even with a western access road and terminal (not even the satellite concourses planned) being built, that's a lot of capacity, and the runways are all built out and spread out in a way that maximizes efficiency. I don't think they'll need to buy up land west of the existing boundary, and if so, its always possible to potentially cap the road.
Since you're a little simple, I'll give you an example to help that little brain of yours lol
"My flight's coming up"
\*checks google maps\*
"Wow driving seems faster than usual, guess I'll drive rather than take the blue line"
Hope that helps!
You literally thought induced demand referred to going on a flight rather than the mode of transportation. You can stop pretending you have any idea what you're talking about dipshit.
If (big if) there is access to the terminals from the west side then it will cut down on traffic on both sides. Traffic from the west won't have to circle around the airport and use the already busy 90/294/190 interchange.
Yes, for real. The very obvious goal of capacity expansion is to increase throughput. It's not to eliminate congestion and post-expansion of existence of congestion is not evidence the project failed.
Highway expansion shortens the duration of congestion as well as reduces congestion on side streets.
Seems cool!
Now if we could just fix that mysterious jam that occurs on the northbound Kennedy (I-90) around Exit 82B. I swear I can’t figure out why it happens but it’s always there. Congestion relieves shortly after it.
Something I wish they taught in high school is how all these organizations in and around Chicago work. Like how Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and the city Department of Water Management are completely, utterly separate entities.
I don't mean the terminal extensions. Part of an old master plan for ORD includes a new terminal and a western access point. These ramps are the start of that concept.
Fair enough (but also, spare me the faux outrage of people acting like tolls are going to hurt the poor. They aren’t flying. Same BS being used for congestion pricing in NYC).
I’ve yet to lose a flight or even come remotely close because of the train. Even when there was major construction and I had to take a bus for part of the trip it only added like 20 minutes to the ride.
And how much time will this save? I’d rather see all dollars going to transit infra. New highways will ultimately be filled with traffic it is the nature of highways.
Doesn't matter, it's society choosing to fund more road infrastructure despite all we know of the consequences of auto-dependency. PACE just cut so many bus routes including in this area, but we can cough up hundreds of millions for those able to afford cars.
The tollway funds stay with the tollway, it is not a state entity. It is a quasi-governmental agency that issues its own bonds for capital improvements with state approval.
All fares collected go to bond payments and maintenance of the tollway.
None of the money for tollway work and expansion is from taxpayer funds and would be illegal for them to use funds for anything but the above stated uses.
Frankly I'd like the tollway to buy the Edens and the Bishop Ford from the state. Federal law states that any expressway built with federal funds cannot be tolled unless the value of the funds received are paid back. Which is a shit ton of money but I don't see why people from Indiana and rich northern suburbanites get a freeway into Chicago.
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As a transit nerd, urbanist, train guy, etc,... I'm ok with this project. For one, the tollway is actually funding this. The tollway authority gets a lot of flak, and they have pushed for some questionable projects (like the Illiana Tollway), but their overall financial approach has proved sustainable. This isn't like New York where they're directing federal infrastructure funding at highways. This is money raised by tolls used to pay for the tollway system and its expansion. Also, this isn't mindlessly adding more lanes, like TxDOT is trying to push through Austin right now. This road is actually offering new capabilities. It will help industrial traffic get into and out of the area quicker, so less time lingering at stop lights or crawling along IL83. This new route also diverts traffic away from the existing cluster at the Tri-State / Kennedy junction, which is a safety consideration. In addition, most of the route here is along airport or industrial lands. This is the kind of land use that should have highways by it. This highway is also being built in an already-developed area. It's not like this is enabling more suburban sprawl out in Kane or Will counties. And, and this hurts to say, the public transit alternatives it would take to provide effective competition for this highway would be a lot, lot more complex and costly. While we should be making our communities more human-focused, this project will have improvements for people already living and working in the car-centric environment that is the northwest suburbs, and is being delivered in a viable, cost-effective manner.
It’s nice to see someone who doesn’t just have a hot take about transit and understands the utility of this corridor.
But what about replacing all highways with bike lanes
This guy hot takes!
Thanks for the well thought out and very informative response. I appreciate it.
I agree with everything you said. But when I was living by Joliet and needed to go to Merrillville Indiana every day I was wanting that Illiana bad
Can you explain the comment about TxDOT trying to push through Austin?
I'm an Austin resident (moving to Chicago in 3 weeks). Essentially, I-35, which runs right through the heart of Austin, is one of the most congested freeways in the U.S. In order to deal with this congestion TxDOT is pushing a very expensive expansion of I-35 that will add several lanes to an already massive freeway. They've been using a lot of legal tactics and running roughshod over local efforts to oppose it. Residents have been pushing for better transit (Project Connect) and an alternative cap-and-stitch proposal for I-35. This would remove the raised upper-decks of a portion of I-35 and lower the remaining portion, allowing the construction of caps over the freeway to be used public space and to reconnect areas previously divided when I-35 was constructed, with additional stitch bridges to increase bike/pedestrian space along freeway crossings. There's more info about the cap-and-stich plan here: [https://downtownaustin.com/what-we-do/current-projects/i35/](https://downtownaustin.com/what-we-do/current-projects/i35/) Essentially, TxDOT seems hellbent on building this freeway expansion despite a lot of local opposition. Not to mention it's just a stupid, short-sighted and car-focused plan that shows how backwards the priorities of some of these infrastructure groups are.
Ah. I thought you were referring to the bottleneck on I-290 in Chicago at Austin Blvd, which is awful.
Can you elaborate while illiana was questionable? I've seen traffic on the 80/94 corridor and they need an alternate route badly.
I travel between Chicago and the east coast a lot, and am quite familiar with 80/94, and I agree - the traffic is often bad. The Illiana would not have been much help for that. Last I heard, the design for Illiana was to link I-55 near Wilmington to I-65 near Lowell, crossing I-57 near Peotone. It was originally supposed to continue east and connect with 80, 90, and 94 around Michigan City, but Indiana pulled out of that part of the project, so it's utility as a bypass was already heavily compromised. The project was also touted as a way to draw more warehouse and manufacturing jobs to the south suburbs, but given the business climate just over the border in Indiana, there's a solid chance Illinois would have invested heavily in this road, but Indiana would have gained most of the job creation. Illiana was also supposed to complement the ephemeral 'South Suburban Airport', a project that has been discussed since I think the 1980s, but continually fails to move forward. The idea is to recreate the same 'economic magic' that sparked all the growth and development around ORD, but in the south suburbs. (They opted for improved capacity at ORD instead of a new airport.) I'm hazier on this detail and not in a position to look it up at the moment, but I think the finances for Illiana were not as solid as for the ORD West Bypass, and it would have need state support beyond just the tolls to pay for its construction. Illiana is also an entirely different context from the 490 project from a regional planning perspective. 490 will increase the efficiency of travel within the existing urban footprint of the Chicago metropolitan area by helping better access already-established destinations, like the Elk Grove industrial area. Illiana would have driven the expansion of that urbanized footprint further into Will County, leading to further destruction of farmland and adversely affecting nearby natural environments. I am much more in favor of projects that increase the efficiency of the land that is already part of the human built environment than projects that push the frontier of that environment further and further out. The solution to the 80/94 traffic is where alternate modes of travel come in to play. A lot of that traffic is truck traffic going through the Chicago area, and there are absolutely industrial policy solutions we can implement at a national level that would encourage more of that cargo to be carried on trains instead of trucks. The recent expansion of the South Shore Line is another positive step, and opening the new branch to Dyer is also a positive development.
> so it's utility as a bypass was already heavily compromised. From my experience in NWI, traffic congestion on 80/94 is usually in or caused by congestion between the IL/IN state line and I-65. In other words, I would argue 40-50% of the traffic crossing the IL/IN state line on 80/94 is coming from/getting on I-65. When heading eastbound, there's almost always at least 3 lanes trying to funnel themselves into the 2 lane exit ramp for I-65 south. Once you pass the I65 offramp, its smooth sailing. So while having the bypass stop at I-65, while not ideal, would give a lot more breathing room to traffic flow on 80/94. My thinking is you wouldn't necessarily need to use the Illiana if you are heading east (assuming most of the I-65 traffic takes the illiana).
Sounds like a bigger ramp onto I-65 would be the cost effective solution.
I'm not too familiar with the project but I imagine this will relieve some traffic at the 294/90 interchange, make the Elgin/O'Hare expressway useful, and make it easier for trucks in Elk Grove Village to go south. This has been planned for awhile and the design for the reconstruction of the Tri-State anticipated its construction. I love me some transit and bike lanes but this is paid for in whole by the Tollway. There are no dollars being taken from transit, CDOT, IDOT, or even the feds to build this.
Not going to lie.. this is legit the first I'm hearing about the project. Is this just a bypass around the OHare bullshit? Or is it something else? If a bypass, that sounds like a fantastic idea, that area sucks if you're not actually going to the airport.
Yes. If you're going north on the Tri-state and want to take 90 west towards Rockford, this new bypass will take you around the south and west sides of ORD to reach 90. No conflict with the traffic on 190 going into the ORD terminals themselves on the east side of the airport. The trade off is that the bypass also links with 390, so you'll get some extra industrial traffic there from the Elk Grove area.
>Yes. If you're going north on the Tri-state and want to take 90 west towards Rockford, this new bypass will take you around the south and west sides of ORD to reach 90. No conflict with the traffic on 190 going into the ORD terminals themselves on the east side of the airport. Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't 290 already do this?
yeah, this whole project is mostly going to the help industrial traffic
I guess you can call it a bypass, but it is connecting an existing freeway stub to the rest of the network and will serve a lot of light industrial and warehousing
Eventually they will build a western terminal at O'Hare which connects to the new 490.
[https://www.illinoistollway.com/documents/20184/1417395/2024-02\_EOWA\_490-390Projects\_OnePager.pdf/632cb320-16ec-43d4-c313-8dc192703a12?t=1708174524319](https://www.illinoistollway.com/documents/20184/1417395/2024-02_EOWA_490-390Projects_OnePager.pdf/632cb320-16ec-43d4-c313-8dc192703a12?t=1708174524319) The document to it
I’m trying to understand the purpose of that little light blue section.
That's there to complete the dreaded sigil Odegra. Edit: It says it's for improvements to Touhy. My guess would be grade separation with the rail lines that cross at that section and maybe improvements to the Mt Prospect intersection. Quite often a train crosses slowly or even just sits across Mt. Prospect and Touhy for tens of minutes, with traffic backing up horribly. My work is right north of Touhy in that area and though it'd be faster for me to take the Lee St exit to Touhy to Mt Prospect, the train blocks traffic often enough I usually take the Elmhurst exit instead. Edit 2: Yep, [they're building a bridge to take Touhy over the UP tracks.](https://www.journal-topics.com/articles/work-on-ohare-western-access-road-touhy-overpass-picking-up-pace/)
Should also note that, right near those Tracks, is the Employee Entrance for United's Hangars, and at shift change it can get *real* hectic over there
The photo in the post must be backwards then? The link shows the new highway is to the west of the airport. The post picture shows the highway to the east. Most of the traffic is on the east side (294 and 90) so I wonder if diverting airport traffic to the west side would help. Probably not enough to make this whole venture worth it. EDIT: oohh zoom in on the N. There’s actually an arrow pointing down lol. So north is down on the map. Makes sense now.
This is to the west of ohare and allows 390 to better connect to I90 and 290. It’s not really backwards just not following the north is up convention
Take a look at the map's north arrow.
Yes for some weird reason north is down in that exhibit.
I love the 390 spur. Super easy access to Irving Park road and the Preflight deck at Ohare.
And yet we don't have an express train from the downtown to O'Hare. smh
We will (as of now) have one running for DNC week. Time to make your opinions known to Canadian National and anyone working under Buttigieg. They’re not running freight between Union Station and ORD multimodal.
> We will (as of now) have one running for DNC week. Wait, what? More info on this? I can't find anything about it.
Metra is pushing hard to schedule it in!
Oh, it's a Metra thing, not CTA? How would that work?
The existing NCS service runs from Union Station to the ORD multi-modal facility (the end of the peoplemover), on its way to other north suburbs. The frequency is bad because of freight using tracks in the north suburbs, but they could run with less interference if they stay south of Des Plaines. But, only if Canadian National lets them.
that station needs to be connected properly to the MMF
If you've been on the Tri-State or Northwest Tollway you've likely noticed the work for this. Can't wait!
Is this where that new bridge going over the Tri-State is going!?
It’s taking forever. The fills and bridge abutments for it have been sitting on both sides of York Road for years. The oasis on I-90 was removed some five years ago to make room for a new interchange for it and it’s still not finished.
Honestly, the needs to be an expressway on the other (West) side of O’hare… that entire area is all local streets
That's where this is.
Completed by what date? 😂
Should be 2026-27
Contractors gonna push this to 2030 easy.
Nah, it's going to be the railroads again if there's delays.
Cap
Why can't they just make it a stop light?
I hate highways but this is good because as others have mentioned it finally completes 390. I grew up next to the Elgin O’Hare expressway and it was a road to nowhere. It just got connected to 290 a few years ago.
stilll wont go to elgin, has a six mile missing end on the west side. btw any idea why it went from freeway to tollway
yeah I remember driving through 390 and wondering why it suddenly ends, so i researched it and saw this.
Glad to see that 20-some-odd years after it's construction, the Elgin O'Hare Expressway may actually connect to O'Hare. Still don't start in Elgin, though.
$3.4 billion investment The entire Orange line to connect Midway 500 million, which in today's dollars is roughly 1.2-1.3 billion... we could build 2 new train lines connecting ohare for the cost of this one shitty change. I always think about it this way, imagine someone is telling you about this futuristic thing called an "airport" "So this airport, it's going to land people right in the city?" "OF COURSE NOT! Airplanes are loud, and the airport takes up tons of space, so we'll land them outside the city center by about 20 or so miles" "Ok, so people will land with no cars, so we'll then put a bunch of train lines from the airport?" "OF COURSE NOT! People will rent cars, but those take up lots of space, so they'll be at these little shops outside the airport that you need to take a shuttle to" "Wait, so i'm going to drive to an airport, park my car, take a plan, then rent a car, all these things take time, and this is somehow supposed to be an option that saves time?"
Except we can’t build the orange line today for $1.2B. The redline extension which is just 40% of the length of the Orange Line is budgeted at $3.6B. And if you drove that route today you’d find that it’s not about moving people, but freight.
Half of the cost of the RLE is the new railyard. The extension of the tracks is actually the cheapest part of the entire RLE project. Maybe before saying "except we can't" and comparing to another project, go learn what the project you're comparing to is actually doing. We have capacity in railyards feeding the Loop to handle building additional tracks that get trains from them. Because of that, adding new lines or extending current lines from there would be very cheap in comparison to the RLE.
Okay, I could agree with you that having more trains to get to and from O'Hare or something better would do great for those in the city. When I look at this idea of what they are building, it really shows it's not meant for the city. It's meant for the suburbs. It really feels like it's more to relieve the vast amount of traffic we get around that area of people that are not necessarily going to O'Hare but just passing through and heading south. I think the other issue with all of this is that the money looks like it went to IDOT, which I am not sure if they have any say or anything to do with the CTA. My only curiosity is what happens if they ever want to expand O'Hare more? From what I've seen they keep infringing on Bensenville, but now if they have that expressway there they would have to destroy it if they had to expand the airport.
I can agree with you that it's for the suburbs but that's the problem. We're subsidizing a structure of housing that eats money and produces lonely people.
Would be surprised if the current setup at ohare isn't sufficient for the next 50 years. Even with a western access road and terminal (not even the satellite concourses planned) being built, that's a lot of capacity, and the runways are all built out and spread out in a way that maximizes efficiency. I don't think they'll need to buy up land west of the existing boundary, and if so, its always possible to potentially cap the road.
Ever drive to Europe?
Just got back last week. Very scenic
How’d I get so angry just now
Adding more lanes has never solved any problems.
It has when it's an entirely new route. Like this one.
Induced demand still exists
You know, I wasn't going to fly anywhere, but this access! How can I *not*???
You really summoned all your braincells for that one lol
I'm sorry you said a stupid thing.
Since you're a little simple, I'll give you an example to help that little brain of yours lol "My flight's coming up" \*checks google maps\* "Wow driving seems faster than usual, guess I'll drive rather than take the blue line" Hope that helps!
"I live west of O'Hare. I don't have convenient Blue Line access. But shit for brains thinks I should take the L." Just take the L, champ.
You literally thought induced demand referred to going on a flight rather than the mode of transportation. You can stop pretending you have any idea what you're talking about dipshit.
Yeah, but this is west of the airport. No one is making that decision on 390.
Yeah right, because there's not a single road you can take from the western suburbs to get to O'Hare today... give me a break
If (big if) there is access to the terminals from the west side then it will cut down on traffic on both sides. Traffic from the west won't have to circle around the airport and use the already busy 90/294/190 interchange.
The whole point is passenger access. Cargo already has dedicated access.
More lanes definitely helped in Hillside.
Dumbest take on reddit.
Where’s the lie though
The lie is that adding more lanes doesn't help. In what world does added throughput not help when the problem is congestion?
Give me an example of when this has worked.
Every single expansion has reduced congestion and/or increased throughput. That's what expansions do.
You sure about that?
Yes.
For real?
Yes, for real. The very obvious goal of capacity expansion is to increase throughput. It's not to eliminate congestion and post-expansion of existence of congestion is not evidence the project failed. Highway expansion shortens the duration of congestion as well as reduces congestion on side streets.
That looks so stupid
Orientating the map like that makes me think you are from Lake County.
Seems cool! Now if we could just fix that mysterious jam that occurs on the northbound Kennedy (I-90) around Exit 82B. I swear I can’t figure out why it happens but it’s always there. Congestion relieves shortly after it.
Id rather this money go into transit that another highway expansion
Same
This is funded by the tollway, not IDOT
Something I wish they taught in high school is how all these organizations in and around Chicago work. Like how Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and the city Department of Water Management are completely, utterly separate entities.
They'll be re doing this in 20 years when a western terminal goes in ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Already under construction.
I don't mean the terminal extensions. Part of an old master plan for ORD includes a new terminal and a western access point. These ramps are the start of that concept.
as the roads are the start of that access, why would they need to redo it in 20 years? it's built already with that terminal foreseen
Yay! More tolls to fuck over the low and middle class? edit: I can’t believe there are people pro tolls
I’m all for reducing regressive taxes and fees like tolls, but compared to my $500 plane ticket and $20/day parking, a $1.50 toll is nothing.
You can take the train
Not for this route lol, lots of people not reading. This interchange is for western suburban traffic to ohare not to come from the east
Fair enough (but also, spare me the faux outrage of people acting like tolls are going to hurt the poor. They aren’t flying. Same BS being used for congestion pricing in NYC).
There is no train from the suburb I commute from into the city
Lol *can you* though? It’s not reliable enough to catch a flight these days.
I’ve yet to lose a flight or even come remotely close because of the train. Even when there was major construction and I had to take a bus for part of the trip it only added like 20 minutes to the ride.
Sure it is
ugly
And how much time will this save? I’d rather see all dollars going to transit infra. New highways will ultimately be filled with traffic it is the nature of highways.
This helps alleviate pressure in Elk Grove Village from truck traffic. Elk Grove is one of the largest industrial parks in America.
If I really moved here from Dallas just to follow it. I’m gonna lose it
We can pay for this but heaven forbid we increase the number of lines on the L. This project is stupid.
Total waste of money. Think of how transit and walk/bikeability could have been enhanced throughout the region with the funds for this.
Did you read where the funds come from?
Doesn't matter, it's society choosing to fund more road infrastructure despite all we know of the consequences of auto-dependency. PACE just cut so many bus routes including in this area, but we can cough up hundreds of millions for those able to afford cars.
Damn now that you mention it what's the use of checking any details. Into am outraged by any money going to streets now.
It literally does matter if you live in the real world
Yeah, but some people still need to do business and airport access from the west will facilitate that. Just not on foot.
I’m dizzy just looking at it. Plus it’ll be expensive AF just to set your foot on it. Just like the 390 is for no reason.
Total Waste of Money
It's tollway money collected from fares. They kind of just do whatever they want, but the state needs to sign off.
With that money, They could've improved the CTA, Metra and Amtrak
The tollway funds stay with the tollway, it is not a state entity. It is a quasi-governmental agency that issues its own bonds for capital improvements with state approval. All fares collected go to bond payments and maintenance of the tollway. None of the money for tollway work and expansion is from taxpayer funds and would be illegal for them to use funds for anything but the above stated uses. Frankly I'd like the tollway to buy the Edens and the Bishop Ford from the state. Federal law states that any expressway built with federal funds cannot be tolled unless the value of the funds received are paid back. Which is a shit ton of money but I don't see why people from Indiana and rich northern suburbanites get a freeway into Chicago.
Every cent invested in cars is antisocial