CTA Blue Line journeys are about to get easier for some commuters who have faced nearly monthlong station and track closures, but a stretch of the Forest Park branch will remain closed to trains into the fall.
The Clinton and UIC-Halsted stations are set to reopen at 10 p.m. Sunday, easing commutes for students at the University of Illinois at Chicago and those connecting to Amtrak at Union Station. But the Racine station will remain closed and trains will not travel between UIC-Halsted and the Illinois Medical District stations until early October, as construction to remove slow zones continues.
Initially, all three stations closed in late July and trains did not run between the LaSalle and Illinois Medical District stations, as a $268 million project to rebuild the track and upgrade the power system got underway. The stretch of closed track will now shorten as construction enters a new phase.
The work is intended to help remove about 3 miles of the slow zones that plague the 17.8-mile Forest Park branch of the line. About 80% of the branch has slow zones, which force trains to crawl down the highway median and add time onto riders’ commutes.
So far, crews have rebuilt the tracks and drainage system between LaSalle and UIC-Halsted. That work will now continue from UIC-Halsted to the Illinois Medical District station.
The agency is also beginning to completely rebuild the Racine station, which will continue into the coming years. Once tracks reopen around October, trains will resume stopping at Racine and one of the station’s entrances will reopen, even as the station construction continues.
The CTA has been running shuttle buses and offering discounted fares on alternate transit routes during construction, and those efforts will continue. A shuttle will now run at all hours, all days, between the UIC-Halsted and Illinois Medical District stations.
The CTA is also offering free rides on bus routes near the construction zone. The free rides are being offered on north-south routes on roads between Ashland and Austin, for those who board at stops between the Green and Pink lines, which run on either side of the closed stretch of Blue Line track. Free rides are also being offered on some north-south Pace bus routes near the project area.
On trains, fares will be cut in half for those who use a Ventra card and board at certain stations on the Green, Pink or Blue lines. On the Green or Pink lines, reduced fares will be in place at Ashland/Lake and all stations west, and on the Blue Line at the Illinois Medical District and all stations west on the Forest Park branch.
The effects of the closures could also be felt up the busy O’Hare branch of the Blue Line, CTA spokesman Brian Steele has said. With part of the line out of service, wait times along the rest of the line could be a “couple of minutes” longer. But when work is finished, fewer slow zones along the Forest Park branch should also mean better service along the entire line, the CTA has said.
The Forest Park branch of the Blue Line, which runs down the center of the Eisenhower Expressway, opened in 1958. It’s the only section of track that hasn’t had major improvements to it since it was constructed, according to the CTA.
The work on the eastern edge of the branch, funded by state money, CTA bonds and funding from a city tax increment financing district, is intended to be the first stage of a complete, $3 billion rebuild of the line. No funding or timeline has been identified for work on the remaining pieces of track, the CTA said.
sfreishtat@chicagotribune.com
