On a cold day in November Mark Dawson stood outside the Western Avenue elevated station and distributed fliers warning riders of a CTA proposal to close the Ravenswood line in 1996 for a two-year rehabilitation project.
Residents and riders didn’t know the CTA had plans for the line until late 1991. That was when a secret CTA memo was leaked saying that the agency was considering permanently shutting down the Green Line because it would be too expensive to repair.
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“When that memo was leaked we went to the CTA and said, ‘Look, you can’t shut it down, it’s too important; let’s see how we can save it,’” says Howard Greenwich, research associate for the Neighborhood Capital Budget Group, a not-for-profit advocacy organization. “But [CTA president Robert] Belcaster refused to work with us or even meet with us.”
“The problem with how the CTA handled the Green Line is that for the longest time there was simply no information,” says Adam Kerman, president of the Transit Riders’ Authority, another advocacy group. “And there were a number of alternatives to what they were doing that were never explored. It sort of resulted in a choice between the CTA telling people, ‘We’re either going to shut down the line permanently or shut it down for two years while we rebuild.’ There were no choices. And the reality is that there are always options.”
Of course there are many differences between the Ravenswood and the Green Lines. Ridership on the Green Line had fallen over the last few years, and it serviced mostly poor black communities.
Belcaster also pledged to start “seeking community input in mid-1995 on questions such as station locations and design, alternative service, and construction impacts. CTA established a community based task force to help us plan and implement the Green Line project. In 1995 we will ask the CTA Board to create a similar task force for the Ravenswood project.”
Meanwhile, Dawson and others have distributed over 2,000 fliers at el stops along the line asking residents for their opinions about the proposal.
