CTA adds new option to Evanston Purple Line project

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Updated: March 11, 2012 8:21AM

Chicago Transit Authority officials have added a new option to their plan to modernize the Purple Line, one that would keep all of Evanston’s stations in place while improving the stations and track.

The change caught Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl’s eye as she walked into an open house Monday in the Community Room at the Evanston Public Library.

“That’s a good choice,” she told CTA strategic planner Steve Hands, one of a number of CTA staffers circulating through the room. “Now you’re talking.”

At a CTA Open House held just over a year ago, three of the agency’s six options included eliminating the South Boulevard and Foster Street el stations.

Tisdahl and other officials had raised protests, saying those stations were important to commuters.

CTA officials are now down to four options and the one added lately, “Modernization without Consolidation,” is the winner so far with city officials.

CTA officials maintain that station consolidation could provide faster, more efficient and more reliable service to passengers on the Red and Purple lines.

Second entrances

Under that option, the CTA would add secondary entrances to nearby stations to shorten the walk time for some rides. At the same time, they acknowledge some patrons may have to adjust their commute as a result of the change.

Other options on the table include “No Action,” “Basic Rehabilitation,” “Modernization with Consolidation” and “Modernization without Consolidation.”

The travel times are fairly small between between consolidation and no consolidation on the Evanston portion of the system, according tothe charts displayed at the meeting.

On Modernization with Consolidation, the travel time from Linden Avenue in Wilmette to Howard Street is 11 minutes, or 4.5 minutes faster than under the current system. For Modernization without Consolidation, the travel time along that stretch would be 12.5 minutes.

Both plans call for making all stations along the route compliant with American s with Disabilities Act regulations and adding amenities as well.

City officials went on record last year that they opposed consolidation. As for the other options, a move to no action or limited rehabilitation, “cannot be serious choices entertained by the Chicago Transit Authority for this project, City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz said in a letter to Hands.

“Although less expensive,” he noted, “alternatives that make limited capital investments would be analogous to a patient needing a heart transplant (and) receiving a few stitches on a cut.”

“Sure, it makes the heart work easier for a long time, but it does not get to the root of the problem,” Bobkiewicz wrote. “The Purple Line is a 100-year-transit line that is in dire need of a complete transplant.”

Impact of closings

Officials say station closings would affect Evanston in multiple ways.

“The South Boulevard station is an essential hub that serves neighborhoods to its south, east and west,” Bobkiewicz noted. “One of Evanston’s largest employers, St. Francis Hospital, is within walking distance of this station.”

He said the station is also a key component of local and federal efforts “to revitalize a neighborhood hit hard during the recession.“

A Foster Street closing would reduce access to Evanston’s largest employer, Northwestern University, he said. Further, the station is within a block from three residential facilities serving populations of older adults, he noted.

CTA officials said they still have some work to do before moving forward. They plan to return to the city this summer with further refinement of their plan.

They expect to complete an environmental impact statement for the project by 2013, and then would be eligible for funding, Hands said.

At the open house, Bob Kotler, an Evanston resident and CTA rider for more than 30 years, brought his own wish list.

“I think if they want to increase the frequency (of trains), that would be good,” he said. If they want to clean the interior of trains, that would be good too, he said.

Patrick Hughes, whose company Inclusion=Solutions looks for ways to increase access, said the CTA’s two hospital stops, at South Boulevard and Central Street, are currently not accessible.

People with disabilities are out of luck, for instance, if they have to visit the hospitals, or are planning to go to Ryan Field, off the Central Street el stop.

“I don’t get it,” he said.