[xnx]

I like my city a lot, but "urbanists" really need to update their priors and examine what they're advocating for. Ride share, electric micromobility, and (soon) self-driving cars totally change the equation for transportation.

Chicago is about to spend $440 million(!) to update a single train stop for a system that is carrying 25% less riders than before the pandemic.

https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/08/20/state-and-lake-cta-s...

[stetrain]

Self-driving cars don’t really do much to increase density of moving people or decrease infrastructure costs per-passenger-mile.

Some parking needs may be reduced, but you still need somewhere for the cars to hang out while waiting for each morning and afternoon directional commuter rush.

You still need the same number of freeways with ever expanding lanes.

They mostly decrease the monetary, time, and mental cost of taking a car to work as an individual choice, which will increase the load on roads and freeways.

How many passengers per hour does that train line move, versus the costs to build and maintain an equivalent capacity freeway with one person in each car?

[drewbug01]

It’s worth asking why the estimates for the station have doubled over the course of the last two years (I can’t find a source explaining why, right now).

But it’s still perhaps an unfair point to make. State/Lake is one of the busiest stations in the system, in the heart of the downtown corridor. It is not a simple “update” - it’s a full, in-place rebuild. And, that rebuild includes adding elevator connections from the elevated platforms down to the subway below. The elevated infrastructure in question is about 130 years old, and they have to keep running the trains over those tracks the whole time.

It’s a massive engineering problem, even before you add in the additional costs of paying crews to work overnights so that the whole CTA doesn’t come to a grinding halt while they do it.

If you search around a bit, you can find the construction costs for other overhauls the CTA has done recently, which far more agreeable price tags. If this one is huge, there’s probably a very good reason why.

[queenkjuul]

Ridership keeps increasing as the system rebuilds from the mass staffing shortages of the pandemic. Every time they increase the frequency of a bus line, ridership increases. The trains will be the same as operators continue to be hired.

State/Lake has been sorely lacking an in-system transfer for damn near a century, and the feds are funding the rebuild. It's one of the busiest stations in the whole city, and evening rush demand still exceeds capacity on two of the six lines it services.

As someone who actually uses the station to get home from work it's ridiculous to hear you talk about this project like it's a bad thing.

[xnx]

> it's ridiculous to hear you talk about this project like it's a bad thing.

At some price it's a great thing, but at what price does it become a bad thing? The price has already doubled before construction, what if it doubles again once construction starts?

With remote work, will the system ever need to carry as many people as it did in 2019?

[queenkjuul]

I mean considering demand exceeds capacity on the brown and red lines every single weekday evening and ridership keeps increasing as the system recovers, yes, i think it's safe to say ridership will get back to 2019 levels - we're like 80% of the way there already.

This station, once rebuilt, will be in place for another hundred years, just like the last. When it comes to permanent infrastructure upgrades that directly address real needs for residents, my upper limit on price doesn't really exist. A $500M train station really isn't a big deal in the grand scope of the total Illinois transportation budget (which will mostly be spent on far more questionable projects like expanding highways)

[xnx]

Reasonable assessment. My math is largely different because I don't expect ridership to ever exceed 2019 levels and or more than 20 years of use out of the station.