In an effort to predict future transit needs and respond to increases in ridership on existing lines, some of which are a century old, the Chicago Transit Authority has several refurbishment and expansion projects under way.

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Brown Line

The $529.9 million Brown Line expansion project, which broke ground on Sept. 10, 2001, and is projected for completion in 2005, will be the largest capital improvement project in CTA history.

"The Brown Line has had a tremendous resurgence in its ridership," said Susan Plassmeyer, former chief of staff for CTA President Frank Kruesi and newly appointed executive vice president of construction, engineering and facilities. "We have seen an 83 percent increase in ridership on this line from 1979 to 2002."

The Brown Line serves the Northwest and North sides of the city and also circles the Loop on an elevated track.

In response to those numbers, the rehabilitation will include expansion of 18 stations to eight-car trains. Adding two cars to the existing six-car trains will alleviate crowding and improve passenger flow. The work, which includes elevator installation and other upgrades, will also make these stations ADA compliant.

Sixteen stations will be completely renewed as a part of the project. Multiple design firms have been hired, each responsible for specific stations, but they're working in collaboration to create a unified effect.

"The firms working on the Brown Line formed a design collaboration," Plassmeyer said. "They each worked on their own stations but they collaborated on areas of common interest such as canopies and architectural details that tie them all into one line."

She added the CTA worked with the Illinois Historical Preservation Agency to handle some of the historic elements of eight of the Brown Line stations.

Circle Line

The CTA has plans in the works for a second loop of commuter lines to serve the needs of the ever-expanding downtown area.

"This is something called the Circle Line," said Noelle Gaffney, vice president of communications for the agency. "We are currently seeking funding for this at the federal level."

Plassmeyer said the proposed project, which will ring downtown Chicago and create a second loop of train service to serve an area six times greater than the existing Loop, is divided into three phases. Both new rail construction and renewal of existing rail are included in the plans.

The line will connect all the CTA rails lines, along with Metra lines, saving commuters from coming all the way into downtown on one line to transfer to another and backtrack to their destinations.

Phase one of the Circle Line development is the renewal of the existing Paulina Connector.

"This is part of the CTA system that has been working as a rail line in that we have used it to move trains from one line to another," Plassmeyer said. She said work on the connector will be completed by Jan. 31.

Express Airport Trains

In mid-March, the CTA received approval to commence negotiations with a division of Virginia-based Mills Corp. to construct a $213-million station beneath Block 37 in the Loop. The station is slated for use on a planned express line serving O'Hare International and Midway airports.

Red Line

The CTA's Red Line is visible to motorists driving the Dan Ryan expressway, with tracks and stations located in the middle of the expressway. It is the most heavily traveled of the CTA lines, carrying 200,000 customers daily.

The Dan Ryan branch of the Red Line went into service in 1969 and has not been refurbished in the 35 years since.

"We are renewing all the track," Plassmeyer said. She added that phase one of the project involved creating temporary crossovers and a temporary signal system to reroute all trains to one side of a station to give crews access to the other side.

Turner Construction is serving as construction manager and Kiewit/Reyes AJV is the general contractor in this $192.5 million project.

Working on a functioning commuter rail line located in the middle of a busy freeway is not easy.

"We are moving trains around the construction zones rather than through them," Plassmeyer said. "We have notified motorists in the area where we will first have this temporary track built. We don't want to surprise motorists. They need to understand what is going on in their field of vision."

Work on the Red Line includes rehabilitation of electrical substations along the line.
Communications equipment, which has evolved significantly in the last 35 years, will also be upgraded.

Stations along the line were not in need of reconstruction but are being refreshed and brightened for customer comfort.

Blue Line

A four-year, $482 million project on the Cermak (Douglas) Branch of the Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line on Chicago's West Side is more than 90 percent complete.

Originally constructed a century ago, the line's elevated structures were deteriorated in several areas.

"The Blue Line is in a very dense urban area," Plassmeyer said. "We wanted to keep it in that right-of-way and in neighborhoods accustomed to having transit right there. There just isn't land available to build a new right-of-way."

The project replaces the line's well-worn, 100-year-old elevated structures, which had deteriorated to the point of requiring "slow zones" along the line and were delaying commuters every day. All eight of the line's elevated stations are being reconstructed with center-platform designs and are being brought into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Also included are new foundations and structure for 80 percent of the elevated line, new rail, a transportation center and a washing facility for train cars. New cab signals and a fiber-optic communication system will bring the system into the 21st Century.

Area schools were involved in the construction project via a drive to collect plastic milk jugs to be recycled into dense, durable, plastic railroad ties. Each tie required 1,000, one-gallon jugs.

The project manager is Blue Line Managers, a joint venture between DMJM /Harris of East Illinois and Kenny Construction Co. of Wheeling, Ill. The general contractor is a joint venture pairing Kiewit Construction Co. of Omaha, Neb., and Delgado Erectors Inc. of Lansing, Ill.

The team kept trains running throughout construction.

Although crews could work under or adjacent to the tracks on weekdays, any work actually involving the tracks had to be carried out on weekends, when the trains were not scheduled to run.

"The biggest challenge was doing things right the first time," said project manager Bill Jorgensen. The 45-hour weekend window allowed to time to correct mistakes.

Jorgensen added that project is on track to come in 255 days ahead of schedule as well as under budget.

"This job is what brought me to Chicago," he said. "This is the first major transit project of its kind, replacing infrastructure without stopping traffic. Nobody does this at this scale."

He said by project's end in January, workers will have replaced 536 spans, or 5.5 mi. of bridges.

Bidding and Billing

Plassmeyer said the CTA posts newspaper ads for upcoming bids, and posts construction documents on the CTA Web site.

She added that the CTA changed its billing and payment operations during the Blue Line project. The new billing procedures will be implemented on the Brown Line work as well.

"We requested billing twice a month and then we paid within 30 days," she said. "We are committed to creating and maintaining a track record that makes the CTA a very desirable entity to work for."