CTA L TRACKS TO GET LONGER IN CHICAGO SUBURBS! But It May Take A While!
CTA L TRACKS TO GET LONGER IN CHICAGO SUBURBS! But It May Take A While!
PROPOSAL IN EARLY STAGES WOULD EXTEND CTA RED YELLOW AND ORANGE L LINES!
In Chicago our historic CTA Elevated which we fondly refer to as "The El" has carted thousands of commuters and tourists around our town daily for nearly 120 years.
El trains extend to the Chicago City Limits on the North Side to the Englewood Neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago connecting both Wrigley Field the home of the Chicago Cubs and U.S. Cellular Field (or as we Old Timers still call it – Comiskey Park) where the South Side Chicago White Sox play ball each summer.
Our CTA Blue Line runs to O’Hare Airport on the Far Northwest Side while the Orange Line a relatively recent introduction to local mass transit heads out to Midway Airport near Cicero Avenue and 55th Street. The Pink Line L runs to the Chicago Suburb of Cicero IL while the Green Line and the Purple Line L Trains head out every few minutes bound for Oak Park IL and Evanston IL respectively.
If an early-stages plan on extending El service in Chicago and in the nearby suburb of Skokie IL get off the ground the CTA Trains will serve thousands more every day.
The plans were announced earlier this week by CTA Chairman Carole Brown as reported by Jon Hilkevitch in today’s Chicago Tribune and would extend the CTA Red Line from its current terminus at 95th Street on the South Side nearly 4 1/2 miles further south to 130th Street.
The Yellow Line more commonly known here as the Skokie Swift would extend just over 1.5 miles further north ending near the Old Orchard Shopping Center in Skokie at Golf Road near Skokie Boulevard.
The Orange Line serving Midway Airport would be extended roughly two miles further south to the Ford City Shopping Mall on the Southwest Side of Chicago.
Each line would be extended over existing vacated railroad right-of-way and displacement of currently-built homes and businesses would be minimal. However with all the planning the bidding process and necessary environmental impact studies as well as time for hearings from local residents most impacted by the extension of the CTA El System don’t plan for work to begin anytime in the immediate future.
Indeed there’s been talk of an extension to the Red Line L for four decades.
The ultimate cost of the ambitious plan in today’s dollars – $2 Billion.
DEAN MOSS & DEAN’S TEAM CHICAGO
