Category: Urban Rail

Photo: Reclaim the streets

November 26, 2009 / / 0 Comments

You should be able to tell that Peoria Street had auto traffic across the entire bridge over the Eisenhower (I-290), but then the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) took over this area in the 1960s (shortly after the sunken Blue Line was built). An expanded station house was built with a large waiting area which includes interior bike parking within the paid fare zone.

UIC has classrooms immediately north and south of the expressway and Blue Line so it’s in their students’ best interest to have good access to the train station.

How could the former road space be changed now to make this a better public space or plaza?

I think the first thing I would do is remove the curbs – if you’re riding a bike these get in the way.

New light rails this year

January 24, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Visiting my family in Mesa, Arizona, over my holiday break last year got me more excited about light rail than I’ve ever been. I hopefully showed this with my photos on my Flickr account. I posted over 300 pictures of the new Valley Metro light rail that serves the west side of Mesa, central and north Tempe, and many regions of Phoenix. It goes through two downtowns: Tempe and Phoenix. The light rail will be good for commuters, but also discretionary travelers; both downtowns are major destinations for the valley. Tempe has a vibrant night life and the state’s largest college campus. Phoenix has tons of large-scale attractions.

I love trains. I’m almost a railfan.

So I present you this list of light rail extensions that will open this year in the United States – just two, but they’re respectively significant for the regions they will serve. There are no new systems opening this year, but there’s at least one for 2010.

  • Seattle SoundTransit Central Link – This new line goes from the Westlake Center (southern terminus for the Seattle Monorail) south to the Seattle-Tacoma airport. This will be an amazing new asset for the region – transit links to airports is always a plus. We’ve benefited from this in Chicago for over 15 years (the Orange line to Midway opened in 1993, after the Blue line to O’Hare). Sadly, after several years of voting rounds and bickering, the monorail was never extended into the transit system; the potential’s still there.
  • Portland MAX Green Line – Scheduled to open in September 2009, the Green line will wrap around the new/reorganized Portland Transit Mall and head south along I-205 to a new transit center at the Clackamas Town Center mall. As part of this construction, the existing bike path following the highway will be redesigned and improved greatly. The TriMet website has more information about the enhancements along I-205.

Transit must integrate with bicycle facilities

January 23, 2009 / / 0 Comments

Valley Metro, the bus and light rail operator for the Phoenix Metro in Arizona, forgot to install bike parking at the Roosevelt/Central station in downtown Phoenix. This station might have been part of a planned Transit Oriented Development (TOD), or it might not have, but the fact is that there’s plenty of mid-density residential buildings right across the street and further west.

There’s no excuse to NOT have bike parking at ANY light rail or transit station. However, during my visit there on grand opening day (December 27th, 2008), my observations along with the Valley Metro publications indicate that the agency only installed bike parking at stations with park & ride lots.

I believe Valley Metro will realize their error and install secure bike parking at this station – there’s plenty of room!

Valley Metro may actually be motivated to install the bike racks when they realize that cyclists will be locking their bikes to the railings on the inside of the shade structures. These are not ideal locations for bike parking, could be unsafe, and will potentially damage the shade structures. I hope it doesn’t come to that and Valley Metro makes the station upgrades as soon as possible.