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I'm a bit of two minds about this.  On the one hand, I'm opposed to just about any cuts in transit, because it's needed everywhere, and people's habits follow the infrastructure.  The alternative is, almost always, more cars, which is bad for everyone.

 

On the other hand, it's hard to feel too bad for Evanstonians losing some fairly redundant rapid transit stops, within a few blocks of other stops, while large sections of the city and nearby suburbs remain horribly underserved by transit.  You can't even get a bus without walking half a mile in large parts of the South and West Sides, let alone a train.

If closing these stations would result in new stations popping up in locations not currently being served, i could understand supporting the closures, but that is not what is going to happen. Ridership reduction has never recovered on the green line after many stations were closed as a part of the rehab of that line. I don't think we should be eliminating transit infrastructure. We should be building more.

If Jarvis is closed, it's likely to kill a wonderful little business district at Jarvis and Greenview - restaurants, small theater company, massage place, and other small businesses - that has been a BIG boost to that part of Rogers Park.  After so many years of hard work to build that business district and improve safety and quality of life, I hate to imagine the impact if the station is lost. 

 

BTW, there are MANY people who live between Jarvis and Morse who choose to use Jarvis for safety reasons.  The area around the Jarvis station is much safer than around Morse.  Folks who aren't as familiar with those stations might look at the map and think "it's only a few blocks from there to Howard."  In such a densely populated area, a one mile gap (without Jarvis) is too long a distance between stops. 

 

The South Blvd. stop in Evanston serves St. Francis Hospital, which is used by many north side residents. For Rogers Park, it's the nearest ER and nearest trauma center.  While there is also bus service in that area, it involves walking 1/2 mile in an area that tends to be icy in winter.  Night and weekend service intervals on those buses is not good, making the El a more reliable alternative.   If this station is lost, it would mean a gap of slightly over a mile between stops.


Foster would be an easier cut, but still not a great idea.  This would create about a 3/4 mile gap between stops. 

 

Lawrence is a remnant from when Uptown and Edgewater had stops every 2 blocks or so.  If Lawrence were cut, there would be 1/2 mile gap from Wilson to Argyle, which is an acceptable interval. 

 

I agree with Sol that this is likely to hurt ridership, especially in Evanston.  Evanston has steadily lost bus service over the years, and that has created a hardship on the west side of town, which is not affluent.  There are plenty of people living and working close to the South Blvd. stop who are far from affluent.

 

Dan - While I agree with your point about many areas of the south and west side being terribly underserved by transit, that doesn't make these proposed closures a good thing.  Don't assume that everyone in Evanston is rich, white and spoiled.  Far from it.

Yes I agree losing lawrence would be less diasterous than other areas (and I live at lawrence).

Re:evanston- I don't think dan meant all of evanston was rich but some people may think that.

Anne Alt said:

If Jarvis is closed, it's likely to kill a wonderful little business district at Jarvis and Greenview - restaurants, small theater company, massage place, and other small businesses - that has been a BIG boost to that part of Rogers Park.  After so many years of hard work to build that business district and improve safety and quality of life, I hate to imagine the impact if the station is lost. 

 

BTW, there are MANY people who live between Jarvis and Morse who choose to use Jarvis for safety reasons.  The area around the Jarvis station is much safer than around Morse.  Folks who aren't as familiar with those stations might look at the map and think "it's only a few blocks from there to Howard."  In such a densely populated area, a one mile gap (without Jarvis) is too long a distance between stops. 

 

The South Blvd. stop in Evanston serves St. Francis Hospital, which is used by many north side residents. For Rogers Park, it's the nearest ER and nearest trauma center.  While there is also bus service in that area, it involves walking 1/2 mile in an area that tends to be icy in winter.  Night and weekend service intervals on those buses is not good, making the El a more reliable alternative.   If this station is lost, it would mean a gap of slightly over a mile between stops.


Foster would be an easier cut, but still not a great idea.  This would create about a 3/4 mile gap between stops. 

 

Lawrence is a remnant from when Uptown and Edgewater had stops every 2 blocks or so.  If Lawrence were cut, there would be 1/2 mile gap from Wilson to Argyle, which is an acceptable interval. 

 

I agree with Sol that this is likely to hurt ridership, especially in Evanston.  Evanston has steadily lost bus service over the years, and that has created a hardship on the west side of town, which is not affluent.  There are plenty of people living and working close to the South Blvd. stop who are far from affluent.

 

Dan - While I agree with your point about many areas of the south and west side being terribly underserved by transit, that doesn't make these proposed closures a good thing.  Don't assume that everyone in Evanston is rich, white and spoiled.  Far from it.

Would be interested in any figures you might have on that. I don't recall ever riding the green line and not finding it reasonably full day or night.

Sol Myers said:
If closing these stations would result in new stations popping up in locations not currently being served, i could understand supporting the closures, but that is not what is going to happen. Ridership reduction has never recovered on the green line after many stations were closed as a part of the rehab of that line. I don't think we should be eliminating transit infrastructure. We should be building more.
I'm puzzled as to why Lawrence would be cut seeing as though it has a bus route running past it.  I know the Argyle and Wilson stops are only a few blocks apart but Lawrence does see 1.1 million passengers a year versus 875,700 or so at Argyle.  Wikipedia has ridership numbers for all these stations by the way.

One would hope that someone crunched numbers and actually has done a thorough cost/benefit analysis on this rather than just using emotional and sentimental arguments.

 

It's a fact of life that money is tight and budgets are not unlimited.  We will never have a stop at every block on every line, resources must be allocated to do the most good with a limited budget.  I'm not saying that these are necessarily smart closings but if every time the people who are trying to run the CTA get flack/pushback for every hard decision they must make then progress and change/improvements will be next to impossible to implement.  

 

You can't make omelets without breaking eggs.

Many of the rebuilt stations would have second entrances a block or so away from the main entrance to help cover the gaps caused by closing stations.

If they are closed will the ones like Wilson that are in serious disrepair be upgraded?  I mean, Wilson can't even accomodate people that need elevator access.

 

Are they still talking about extending the red line south? I thought I heard Rahm say that this might be a project of his. It seems strange that they would do that while closing the red line stops. I do think that the north side red line stops need to be looked at and improved though.

They've got federal money for an environmental impact study.  If they can put together funding to build the extension, it could happen.

 

On the plus side, this would mean MUCH better transit access to a part of the city with few good options and little access to jobs.  On the minus side, it would be more infrastructure to maintain when CTA already has a poor track record on maintenance issues, especially on the south side.  For a while now, much of the red line south of 35th St. has been slow zones of varying degrees.  They patch things up a bit when the track gets really rough, but those fixes don't last long.  The stations themselves are in good shape after being rebuilt a few years ago.  The tracks are a different story.

 

When those tracks are in decent shape and trains can run at speed without delays, a trip from 95th St. to Monroe takes less than 1/2 hour.  On most of the trips I've taken lately, it's taken 40-45 minutes or more.


Davo said:

Are they still talking about extending the red line south? I thought I heard Rahm say that this might be a project of his. It seems strange that they would do that while closing the red line stops. I do think that the north side red line stops need to be looked at and improved though.

If they close The Lawrence stop it will be a disaster for my wife who relies heavily on the red line. She has been having trouble finding stable work for the past two years. We don't own a car and live only two blocks away from Lawrence. Could she use Wilson? Sure but it is not a safe stop. There is no way I would feel comfortable with her walking to and from that stop at night, especially when a lot of the clients she babysits for pay her in cash which she has to walk home. 

 

If they close Lawrence they better make Wilson the mecca of amazing which would cost the CTA multiple millions. I just don't see this happening ever.

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