CTA to detail a Circle Line
Series of hearings planned for this week
By Virginia Groark
Tribune staff reporter
Published September 25, 2006
The CTA will provide new details this week on its proposed Circle Line, which would connect all elevated train and Metra lines in the city.
The details will be offered at a series of hearings that are designed to help the agency pick a final route and mode of transport for the $1 billion proposal.
The hearings--which will be held Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday--are part of a mandated process the CTA must undergo to recommend a preferred path, which will be announced early next year.
In May, the CTA said it had narrowed the options for the project to three corridors and three modes of travel: light rail, bus rapid transit or a train system like it currently runs. It also was evaluating whether the system should be at street level, a subway or an elevated system.
At the hearings this week, officials will present more details on those options.
The Circle Line is one of five projects Congress authorized in a transportation bill passed last year. But those projects must still secure federal funding.
The CTA is promoting the Circle Line as a way to improve connections between all "L" and Metra lines in the city limits so people would not have to travel into the Loop to transfer between them. The path, which is expected to create an outer ring, would be bordered by Pershing Road on the south, Fullerton Avenue on the north, Rockwell Street on the west.
But the project has raised concerns in some neighborhoods, where people are worried about the demolition of homes and businesses or the impact of constructing new elevated tracks.
In one North Side ward, an alderman will ask residents on the Nov. 7 ballot to say whether they would want the transit line to be a subway system in their neighborhood. "A lot of people are concerned in my ward about an elevated rail line," said Ald. Ted Matlak (32nd), who noted the CTA could reduce the impact by building a subway.
In May, the CTA unveiled three proposed corridors for the route, all of which would start on Archer Avenue along the existing Orange Line.
In the so-called Ashland corridor, the route would then cut north in the vicinity of Ashland Avenue and travel east between Fullerton and North Avenues to connect with the North/Clybourn station on the Red Line. In the Ashland/Ogden corridor, the route would travel north on Ashland, head northeast on Ogden Avenue and turn north near Halsted Street to the North/Clybourn station. The Western corridor proposal would take the route north on Western Avenue before heading east between Fullerton and North Avenues.
The meetings will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday in the Bucktown/Wicker Park Chicago Public Library, 1701 N. Milwaukee Ave; Wednesday in the National Teachers Academy, 55 W. Cermak Rd.; and Thursday in the First Baptist Congregational Church, 1613 W. Washington Blvd.
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vgroark@tribune.com
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