CTA considers Closing Up To Five Red/Purple Line Stops

UGG!!!! Say it ain't so!

 

CTA Considers Chopping Two Evanston Stations

 

CTA May Close Up To Five Red/Purple Line Stops

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Permalink Reply by Dan Korn on January 27, 2011 at 8:13pm

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.

Permalink Reply by Sol on January 27, 2011 at 8:54pm
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.
Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on January 28, 2011 at 2:20am

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.

Permalink Reply by Julie Aberman (Hochstadter) on January 28, 2011 at 3:08am
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.

Permalink Reply by Jared on January 28, 2011 at 3:43am
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.
Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on January 28, 2011 at 5:43am

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.

Permalink Reply by Mark on January 28, 2011 at 6:33am
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.
Permalink Reply by in it to win it 8.0 mi on January 28, 2011 at 8:50am

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.

 

Permalink Reply by Davo on January 28, 2011 at 9:03am

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.

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on January 28, 2011 at 9:15am

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.

Permalink Reply by Ryan L on January 28, 2011 at 9:30am

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.

Permalink Reply by Dan Korn on January 28, 2011 at 10:10am
Anne Alt said:

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.

I never said anything about anyone being rich, white, and spoiled, nor do I assume as much. (Although compared to most of my neighbors in Little Village, I'm rich, white, and spoiled.)

I merely made a factual statement about the disparity in transit service, especially rail service, between the area in Evanston affected by the station closings in question, and most of the rest of Chicago and its nearby suburbs, particularly on the South and West Sides. And that disparity is quite glaring, regardless of the racial or socioeconomic demographics of those areas. But I can see how one might read a suggestion of race or wealth bias into the service disparity, even though that wasn't really my point, and even though I didn't actually say it. And this disparity goes way beyond the CTA, but that's a larger discussion.

I don't see it as a zero-sum game, that we're somehow going to get more service in different parts of town if we reduce it in Evanston. We need to bridge that gap in service by adding, not cutting. It just seems a little bit precious of the folks there to complain about losing one of three rapid transit stations within a half-mile stretch while people in other neighborhoods have much longer walks to get to a train, or even to a bus. Kind of like people in San Diego complaining about the weather.

Also, there is a phenomenon where anytime anyone changes anything, people complain, even if the change is for the betterment of most people. People just don't like change, whether it's a new Facebook redesign, or health care reform, or a change in CTA service. For instance, when they added the Pink Line, some people in Little Village and the West Side were up in arms about losing their "direct trip to O'Hare" on the Blue Line, even though, with the Pink Like, the vast majority of trips to all destinations in the CTA system are now quicker with the increased service that splitting off from the Blue Line allowed, and most trips to O'Hare are actually just as fast, even with a transfer. Of course, now everyone is used to the new setup, and they would complain if it changed back. (Well, so would I, because the Pink Line is actually better.) So while I empathize with people's anecdotes about how a change may make their particular situation more difficult, it may not be so for everyone, and once you get used to the new setup and the other changes that go along with it, you may find it's actually better for you too.

I also realize that some of the gaps would be larger, depending on which stations are closed. But having stops too close together isn't necessarily better service. The train has to make more stops, which slows things down. Redundant stops are required for buses as well. Each stop has less pedestrian traffic, which reduces the perception of safety. There are reasons why more stations translate to better service too, of course, but it's a point of diminishing returns.

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