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Metra Scraps Plan to Move Ravenswood Metra Station

By Laura Pearson | Friday, July 30, 2010

Residents gather at last month's Ravenswood Station open house. Another open house is scheduled for Aug. 3. Photo by Laura Pearson.

Local residents who opposed Metra’s plan to relocate the Ravenswood Metra Station north of Lawrence Avenue (from its current location south of Lawrence) have had their concerns heard.

As first reported by the Chicago Tribune, Metra and Ald. Schulter (47th) have decided not to move the station across the street into a more residential area. Instead, the new station—the busiest on the Union Pacific North line—will be built on its current site.

The impetus for this change was community feedback. Center Square Journal first reported on residents’ concerns at an open house last month. Metra spokesperson Michael Gillis said that at that forum “the feedback was pretty clear.” Subsequently, a group of Ravenswood neighbors organized in opposition to the station relocation, prompting Metra to review the plans.

Those plans called for extending the platform by 350 feet to accommodate more passengers (the current platform is 400 feet). According to Gillis, this would’ve been feasible north of Lawrence, but in order to put a 750-foot platform on the current site, Metra will have to build across the Leland Avenue bridge. “We still have to resolve some issues about that,” he said.

All won’t be calm on the north side of Lawrence just yet: Metra will build a temporary station, serving inbound and outbound passengers, north of the street while construction takes place on the south side of Lawrence. The temporary station will be in use for two years.

Another Metra open house is scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 3, at 7 p.m. at the Bethany Retirement Community auditorium (4950 N. Ashland Ave.).

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  • R Alan

    Hasn’t Metra considered moving the station back to
    it’s original location at Wilson Ave. The only reason that Chicago @ Northwestern moved the station
    to Lawrence Ave. was to accommodate their employees
    who deadheaded (ride free)to work when they occupied the building now occupied by
    Newark ( on the NW corner)at the present.

  • Spyro

    Good news! Also, they need to make sure the new station has a connection with the Brown line!!! Finally, if they want to add more passengers they don’t need more real estate, they can add a second station at Irving Park road… That actually is a better location for all of these since the Irving CTA line is next to the metra lines.

    If we are going to rebuild this thing, let us do it in a way that increases ridership for both systems!

  • Neighbor

    Spyro,

    Why would Metra link to a competing rail line? It would be like Coke machines adding Pepsi to their veding machines to increase sales for both…

    • Eric

      Technically Metra and the CTA are not competing lines, although the fare structure of the Ravenswood station does make it competitive for the West Loop market.

  • Pingback: Metra Open House Draws a Crowd | The Center Square Journal

  • http://n/a Christopher
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