Opponents to the Chicago Transit Authority’s
$570 million project to build a 45 foot high overpass carrying the Brown Line’s
northbound light rail tracks over the northbound and southbound Red Line tracks
and the southbound Purple Line tracks just north of Clark and Belmont will get
the opportunity to voice their concerns about the four year long construction
project at a hearing scheduled for 6:30 p.m. June 3 at the Center on Halsted, 3656
North Halsted Street, Chicago. To complete the congestion relieving and transit
capacity enhancing project, CTA will need to acquire 21 real properties,
including 16 existing commercial and residential buildings in the neighborhood,
as well as moving the historic Vautravers Building 29 feet west of its current
location at 947-949 West Newport Avenue.
CTA’s brand new President Dorval
Carter Jr., who just arrived in town from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s
Federal Transit Administration, numbers the Brown Line Flyover as among CTA’s
top construction priorities. Though the FTA has said it supports the flyover
concept, this far it has only funded environmental studies required to launch
the effort. CTA has not secured any funding source for the costs of actually
building the overpass. Opposition to the project is led by neighborhood
resident Ellen Hughes, whose home is slated for condemnation to make way for
the overpass construction.
