CTA / Metra / Pace

and Service To The

Northwest Corridor

Imagine as many as 600 trains each day making high-speed runs between Chicago and the job-rich northest suburbs.

Imagine, if you could, CTA express trains arriving at O'Hare International Airport from the Loop in less than a half-hour and continuing on to Schaumburg in about 15 minutes, including stops in other suburbs along the route.  Imagine the line eventually extending to Elgin.

Northwest municipal officials have shared this vision to ease traffic congestion in their commuter-unfriendly region for years, although discussion with regional transit authorities have been agonizingly slow.

The options, which include an alternative commuter rail plan that Metra is expected to complete in December, share the same goal:  reducing congestion and travel times on the Northwest Tollway and surrounding arterial streets in the northwest corridor by luring drivers to use mass transit instead.  If it doesn't happen, projected increases in employment are expected to create gridlock in less than 20 years.

"We'd like to see a transit alternative fast-tracked and completed by the end of the decade," said Larry Bury, transportation director at Northwest Municipal Conference.  "Otherwise, it will be hard for the communities to remain economically competitive."

Extending the Blue Line from O'Hare to Schaumburg, and later to Elgin, is the option heavily preferred by the 19 communities along the northwest corridor and by prospective transit riders who participated in focus groups.  The plan would attract the largest number of riders - about 55,000 a day by 2020, according to projections by the Regional Transit Authority - but at more than $800 million, it is also the most expensive alternative.

The proposal would extend the Blue Line subway under O'Hare in coordination with Chicago's planned expansion of the airfield and the introduction of express trains between the Loop and O'Hare.  The first new Blue Line station would be on the western edge of the airport to serve a planned western terminal.  The 11.4-mile route would continue along the right of way on the Northwest Tollway (Interstate Highway 90), making stops in Elk Gove Village, Des Plaines, Mount Prospect, Arlington Heights, Rolling Meadows and ending near the Woodfield Shopping Center in Schaumburg.

The CTA is offering an optional southern routing that would proceed west from O'Hare along the Thorndale Avenue corridor, then follow Interstate Highway 290 north to Woodfield.  But the southern routing would attract far fewer riders because it doesn't connect with the Elk Grove Village industrial park and other employment centers, said John DeLaurentis, planning director for the RTA.

             Pace has proposed two bus rapid-transit options.  The first involves an express bus

             system that would operate along the Northwest Tollway from Rosemont to

             Schaumburg and continuing on to Randall Road in Elgin, said Pace spokesman Blaine

             Krage.  The busway would have buses-only lanes, ramps and about 12 stations along

             the route.  Buses would travel on arterial streets in the second option, making use of

             technology that changes traffic signals to green for the buses to reduce commuting

             times, Krage said.

Metra is working on two plans, one starting at the Milwaukee District West Line and the other at the North Central Service Line.  Both would run west along the Tollway to the Prairie Stone business campus in Hoffman Estates.

The RTA is coordinating a phased study of the various options and is expected to present the preferred alternative, which could include a hybrid of several ideas, next spring.  The federal government is expected to provide half of the funding for the project.  (John Hilkevitch; CHICAGO TRIBUNE)