CHICAGO — Metra’s board of directors on Wednesday approved a $33.9 million contract to rebuild stations on the Metra Electric Line on Chicago’s South Side, making the stations accessible and compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The rebuilds of the 79th, 87th, and 103rd Street stations is part of a larger effort, the Metra Electric Community initiative, to upgrade 13 stations on the route.
“We are excited that our station renovation work is ramping up with this contract to upgrade three more stations on the Metra Electric Line,” Metra CEO/Executive Director Jim Derwinski said in a press release. “As part of our commitment to My Metra riders, we are prioritizing station improvements, in particular making stations accessible to persons with disabilities.”
The work at the stations will include demolition of existing stairs, headhouses, platforms, and platform structures. The replacements will include enclosed, ADA-accessbile street-level entrances and lobbies including elevators; new stairs and headhouses; new platforms; and new lighting, landscaping and signage.
The extensive work will require each station to be closed, but the work will be scheduled in stages so that no more than two of the stations are closed at a time. The work will begin next summer; work on each station is expected to take about seven months.
Similar work is in progress at the 147th Street/Sibley Boulevard station, Metra says. That project began in May of this year and is expected to be completed next summer.
The station contract went to IHC Construction of Elgin. The project is being funded from Metra’s share of the Rebuild Illinois capital program.
That’s Metra Electric’s problem — lousy stations, decades and countless tens millions of dollars behind the times. Great rolling stock, smooth track, awesome frequencies of service, terrible stations.
Even the downtown terminal at Randolph Street is on my list of bad stations. The rebuild turned Randolph Street from a dirty, dank, ugly, dysfunctional hole in the ground to a bright, gleaming, well-lit dysfunctional hole in the ground.
Indeed Charles. As one who rides the ME to get to family in Homewood, and Glenwood.. ME stations are gruesome. The Homewood station was recently upgraded.