Metra's 'Big' Station Rehab Plan

Todays Trib rehashed news from last month about Metra's plans to rehab 24 current stations as well as build 3 new ones. Included was this graphic, I thought was worth sharing:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi- ... 7944.story

One of the new stations Metra has planned is in Auburn Park, on the city's south side about one mile north of Gresham... I question the need for a new station here, versus one where ridership demand is greater.. perhaps between New Lenox and Joliet. An Auburn Park station existed in the days of the Rock, there is probably a reason why it did not make it to the Metra era.

Cumberland -- Reconstruct station building and platforms

I wonder will they make it ADA compliant, too?

So, the long-awaited Romeoville station on HC is finally on the horizon. A new station at Peterson/Touhy on UP-N? Kinda skeptical about that, though it could work if it had just part-time service, although the immediate area is underserved by CTA. And yeah, I also wonder why they're restoring the Auburn Park station on the Rock, where exactly is the demand? Good to see more MED stations getting its share of the makeovers...

The Auburn park station from a standpoint makes seance as the area is going through a modest redevelopment stage, and for CTA traffic in ridership on 79th st. is higher and has always been higher than on 87th. I believe thats the market there trying to capture most. That may have influenced the decision to build the station there still many people will now by pass 87th Gresham station for the Auburn park one. Gresham may now be underused as a result. As its been said the new station will be at Winneconna and Fielding aka 79th st. for One I would have suggested the new station be built off 69th st. for access to Kennedy King College and walking distance to CTAs Red line, but that's just me. I use to live on 79th st. in the mid 90s blocks from the SWS Wrightwood station.

I agree doepack nice to see MED not being left out like the step child for once. Now if we could just get more of the new Bilevels for MED.

A stop at 69th might have made great sense a few years ago, but the Kennedy-King college campus has actually moved elsewhere and the building there is vacant, and has been for a couple years ago. If Metra had established a stop there before it closed, the college may have stayed because the location was more transit-friendly. (Supposedly that building was typical of designs from the early 70s/late 60s: made of concrete that gets dirty and ugly, covered with flat roofs that leak, and not ergonomical in the slightest. They probably moved for good reasons.)

Auburn Park will also be the second new stop to open between Gresham and La Salle st, and I suspect there will be complaints from those who live south of Blue Island if Metra considers any more. Weekend and off-peak service is generally known to be the "milk run" by the southernmost riders of the RI because all trains stop at every stop on the Beverly Branch. Adding five minutes or so to a schedule where trains take a relatively long time to cover distance between Joliet and Chicago isn't doing any favor to those who already have to endure 1+ hour commutes.

byte wrote:A stop at 69th might have made great sense a few years ago, but the Kennedy-King college campus has actually moved elsewhere and the building there is vacant, and has been for a couple years ago..

THEY CLOSED KENNEDY KING ? wow goes to show how long its been since I was in the old neighborhood, I just did a google and saw where the new location its amazing , what an improvement. I havent been over to 63rd st since 2001 or so (for a funeral) thanks for the info.

buddah wrote:The Auburn park station from a standpoint makes seance as the area is going through a modest redevelopment stage, and for CTA traffic in ridership on 79th st. is higher and has always been higher than on 87th.

After reading the article,I decided to look more into plans at Auburn Park. It is indeed tied with redevelopment in the area. These are some of the renderings I found: I also tried finding pics of what the old Rock Auburn Park station looked like without any luck.

Out of curiosity I emailed Metra about the plans for Auburn Park, I'm curious to see what service levels at 35th Street and Auburn Park will be like. With mainline and branch trains 5 minutes apart during the rush, stopping at 35th, Auburn Pk., and Gresham could bring about some issues for scheduling as long as RI continues to remain only two tracks. When riding RI, I for one can't wait to reach Gresham after an agonizing 25 minutes of 30mph. Hopefully Metra has a plan to keep mainline service competitive with driving, unlike parts of the current schedule.. weekends especially take twice as long than driving.

byte wrote:Auburn Park will also be the second new stop to open between Gresham and La Salle st, and I suspect there will be complaints from those who live south of Blue Island if Metra considers any more. Weekend and off-peak service is generally known to be the "milk run" by the southernmost riders of the RI because all trains stop at every stop on the Beverly Branch. Adding five minutes or so to a schedule where trains take a relatively long time to cover distance between Joliet and Chicago isn't doing any favor to those who already have to endure 1+ hour commutes.

Absolutely, and I'm so glad I'm not the only one that noticed this. Even though an extra mainline train or two on Saturdays would alleviate this a little, I can only guess that Metra figures it wouldn't be worth the extra crew and labor costs. So as always, we live with the status quo instead.

MetraRI wrote:With mainline and branch trains 5 minutes apart during the rush, stopping at 35th, Auburn Pk., and Gresham could bring about some issues for scheduling as long as RI continues to remain only two tracks.

It's ironic that for all the recent infrastructure improvements on the Rock between LaSalle & Gresham, once these two stops are added, service isn't going to be any faster than it was before; in fact, it will be slower...

I find it odd that they only list ADA-accessibility for some of the stations. I'm pretty sure they're legally required to add ADA-accessibility when they "reconstruct platforms, stairways, and shelters". 59th and 63rd on Metra Electric particularly need the work, and they're going to have to be rebuilt nearly from scratch, so I wonder why they aren't planning to do it right.... of course, maybe they are, and the Trib just didn't list all the details.