Editorial: A new CTA day for Edgewater and Uptown. But what about Broadway?

Chicago Tribune

3 days ago

'This is Berwyn,' insisted the voice of the CTA as our train pulled into the new Argyle station on the CTA's Red Line Monday afternoon.
Teething troubles, surely forgivable, for the big reopening of four stations on the CTA's Red Line, the transit agency's flagship artery that can take you from Wrigley Field to Rate Field or, for many Chicagoans, from home to work. New stations reopened Sunday with the monikers and (locations of) Lawrence, Berwyn, Argyle and Bryn Mawr, all abutting North Broadway, a street about which there currently is much dissent.
We thought we'd check them all out.
Our takeaway? None of these stations are architectural marvels and they all have the utilitarian design long familiar to CTA riders. But they're also all improvements.
They all have functioning escalators to take you up (but not down) from the turnstiles to the platform. They all have elevators that smell like new cars, not the disgorging of human bodies. We're not crazy about the angled platform seats that seem ready to tip you off at any moment, but we assume the CTA has its reasons, just as it surely does for the endless customer service scrolls that get in the way of what most people at a CTA station really want to know, which is when the next train might be expected.
More significantly, all four stations have translucent roofs that, aside from offering decent shade and shelter, feel to us like a bit of a neighborhood nod to the grand terminals of old.
At Lawrence, the new design showcases terrific views of the (sadly unrestored) Uptown Theatre and the upper reaches of the historic Aragon Ballroom, just a few feet from the train line. We spent a while drinking in those vistas, which somehow feel more impactful now.
But the biggest takeaway? The impact of significantly wider platforms.
Not only do these stations feel (and surely are) significantly safer, but the broader expanse of concrete makes standing there all the more pleasant. There's room to walk around (or away) without feeling crammed toward an oncoming train. The stations have more weight and substance. They have the effect of elevating Edgewater and Uptown.
Those diverse Chicago neighborhoods have been the subject of much zoning mishegoss of late.
In one corner is the 48th Ward's alderman, Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth, and Mayor Brandon Johnson, both of whom want to 'upzone' Broadway from Montrose Avenue to Devon Avenue so it might accommodate taller buildings and more affordable housing. In the other are neighborhood activists who argue this will ruin their quality of life.
We published the thoughts of one of them, Steve Weinshel, on Sunday. Wienshel argued that Johnson's desire to eliminate the parking mandate for new multifamily developments would be catastrophic and he foresaw masses of new housing on Broadway, with most needing somewhere to park. 'To contemplate adding 10,000 housing units along Edgewater's adjacent stretch of Broadway with minimal off-street parking requirements constitutes urban planning malpractice,' Weinshel wrote. 'Such lunacy will plague Edgewater for generations to come.'
Standing on each of those station platforms and looking over at Broadway, you see a streetscape that seems bizarre to defend. Except for the historic Uptown entertainment district, one of the city's overlooked assets, it's a hodgepodge of car washes and mini-malls with surface parking lots that don't feel like they belong, and certainly are no things of beauty. Frankly, they're eyesores.
That said, they're filled with small-business owners who fear their convenient parking being swept away by a lobby that often demonizes their needs. And if you live on or around Broadway and struggle to find somewhere to park your car (and most households in this area have at least one), you understandably are nervous about the future.
Progressive activists, of course, argue that city leaders should not listen to 'motorheads' and force a change in that behavior. They have a case, and the new stations on the Red Line, making travel by the CTA more attractive, certainly bolster their argument. Meanwhile, the other side says creating an avoidable parking crisis will negatively impact the very people who've worked so hard to improve these neighborhoods over the years, neighborhoods that often offer a first stop for new immigrants to the city and are already dense by the standards of elsewhere.
On Monday, we certainly saw a lot more cars on Broadway than people on the CTA platforms, which largely were deserted during the lunch hour.
There again, though, it may take time. Thanks to the delays and dysfunction plaguing new public-funded construction in cities such as Chicago, these relatively simple stations were closed for four years (there were some temporary options, at least). People will have to get used to their opening again. And, of course, new stations alone won't get people out of their cars: for that we need more frequent trains, a greater perception of safety and faster journey times. We could use a CTA that expands operations with regard to use and population.
All that said, we saw CTA functioning at its best and smoothest Monday afternoon; you might even say the trains glide into the new stations. In an ideal world, denser housing, the elimination of required parking and the end of those mini-malls would be a no-brainer for Broadway because far fewer cars would be needed. But in the meantime, some sort of compromise has to be found that involves Chicagoans respecting the needs of others and refraining from insulting perfectly reasonable positions. These new stations deserve a Broadway that rises to meet them.