Passenger Trains > New office buildings and transit - perfect together

There is an article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/10560616.htm about the new Comcast Tower proposed for 17th and JFK Blvd. Another article on KYW http://www2.kyw1060.com/news_story_detail.cfm?newsitemid=43033 mentioned that they will be expanding the Suburban Station Concourse to provide a new entrance to the commuter station below.

It is interesting that the two most recent additions to the skyline, the Cira Centre and Comcast Tower, both are practically on top of major rail stations (30th Street Station and Suburban Station respectively).

I agree with you. It is nice to see office towers trying to coordinate with transit. But as I thought about it, I recalled two transit "horror" stories that happened here in Chicago where companies moved away from transit.

The first story I thought of was Sears Tower, still the tallest in North America. When it opened in the early 1970s, Sears relocated many people from a facility on the West Side, where they had used the Kedzie stop on the C&NW West Line. Sears hunan resoruces people met with C&NW commuter services people, who even revised some schedule times to accommodate the expected changes. That worked fine for about three monhts, until Sears went on flex time, throwing all schedule coordination out the window. The horror story was years later when the company moved hundreds of folks from Sears Tower to suburban Buffalo Grove, where there is as much rail transit as there are buffaloes. That forced lots of folks into their cars, and many resigned.

The ultimate occurred just before the BNSF merger when Santa Fe moved out of the classic Railway Exchange Building at Jackson and Michigan. Since the buidling is just a short walk from the old Illinois Central electric line, many ATSF employees lived in the south suburbs and commuted on the IC. Santa Fe moved to a corner of Schaumburg where the only way to get to work is to drive. I don't know if they wanted to get rid of people, but that was the effect. Try driving from Homewood, for example, to Schaumburg in the rush hour and you'll be desperately seeking alternatives, too, especially after being spoiled by a rail commute.

I've worked in downtown Chicago all my working life, except for one job where I spent two years commuting by auto to the suburbs. When I could switch jobs and get back to rail commutring, it was like being released from purgatory.