CHICAGO – More than a dozen city, state, local, and Metra officials took turns speaking to the media Monday, then posed for the obligatory shovel photo on the site where the $22 million Peterson-Ridge commuter rail station in the Edgewater neighborhood on Chicago’s north side will be built during the next 18 months.
Metra first proposed constructing the new facility in 2009, but erratic state funding in ensuing years put it on the back burner until a $15 million Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity grant and $7 million from the Federal Transit Administration were secured last year.
Politicians representing the area reminded the crowd that they had helped salvage money that had first been set aside for the station over a decade ago from being spent elsewhere, but an unexpected highlight of the ceremony was an appearance by a longtime local resident after the scheduled speakers completed their talks. Jean SmilingCoyote raced to the podium to remind everyone that the new station was blocks from the site of Kenmore, a former Chicago & North Western commuter station that had burned down on what was then the railroad’s Milwaukee Division suburban line. Kenmore and two other stops in the Edgewater neighborhood, Rose Hill and Summerdale, were permanently closed in 1958.
In a period when public funding of commuter rail was non-existent, the North Western shuttered 22 close-in stations on its three divisions that year as commuters flocked to the suburbs and construction of the Kennedy Expressway obliterated city neighborhoods on one of its other routes. But Metra now has plans to add this and other stops within Chicago as vibrant development returns to Edgewater, the West Loop, and the Southwest Side.
The new station will have two heated platform shelters, access to nearby CTA bus routes, parking for cars and bicycles, and be fully accessible to people with disabilities. Completion is set for early 2023.
— Updated at 2 p.m. CDT to correct details of comments during the event.
