[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.