It would seem that only 3 of the Downtown El Stations are Handicapped accesible…This is hard on my heart to climb all those stairs…Most Metro Elevated Electric distrct stations are also not accessible and have no elevators…There does ot seem to be a program in place to put elevators on the els or the metra…how can they get away with this?
Lack of funding and political will.
I’d certainly agree with Paul’s comment on the lack of funding hampering these efforts. Both agencies have put a priority on rebuilding “key stations” to comply with ADA requirements. For example, Metra finished up the work on the Jefferson Park station (UP-NW Line) about a year ago. CTA-Jefferson Park station (Blue Line) has been similarly equipped with an elevator, etc. As for your comment about downtown-area stations, if I remember right, CTA had plans to make these sorts of improvements at State/Lake, but this got tied up in a city project that was to address Randolph/Wabash, including connections to the State Street Subway. That project has started and stopped a few times over. As info, Art
Most L stations on the red line north of Armitage Avenue are a hundred years old or going on to it. Most are made of wood, and would have to be destroyed in order to be rebuilt. (That basicaly is what’s happening at Fullerton Station right now.)
Even worse, of those few stations that have elevators, an amazing number of them are out of service at any given time. Have you ever seen anyone trapped in one on a hot day? I have, at Loyola station several years ago, and I had to call the fire dept. to get her out.
Perhaps my Chicago is no longer the “city that works” as much as the “city that goes through the motions.” - a. s.
According to the CTA’s map, I’m counting at least 5 stations in the loop that are handicapped accessible (Clark, Lake, Library, Washington, Jackson), on top of additional stations that are downtown but outside the actual loop, such as Clinton(green) and Merchandise Mart. So, you may have to go a few extra blocks and perhaps make an extra transfer, but there generally should be a workaround for you.
http://transitchicago.com/maps/maps/200804D.html
Additionally, the Chicago brown/purple line station is being rebuilt with an elevator as we speak. At this point, anytime a station is rebuilt, it includes handicapped accessbility. (For instance, as part of the brown line rebuild program, all of that line’s stations will be handicapped accessible.) I’m sure that the CTA would love to rebuild all stations and get them accessible ASAP, but as mentioned by others, the funding isn’t there. Meanwhile, the older stations are grandfathered.
While Metra Electric suburban stations are being rebuilt and made accessible, albeit at a slow pace, the in-City local stations do seem to be languishing. The purgatory status may reflect the aggressive competition of recent additional CTA South Lake Shore Drive express bus routes and the affect of rerouting and truncating bus grid routes at rapid transit stations. The fact that the South Side is going through a lot of change hasn’t helped. It’s not too hard to imagine Metra calling it quits on the South Side if they could get around the discrimination issue.