(The Star posted the following story by Patrick Ferrell on its website on October 12.)
TINLEY PARK, Ill. — On the surface, a Harvey commuter’s letter in Metra’s September newsletter talks about something seemingly mundane as air conditioning being too cold on the Electric District.
Read a little deeper, and the letter could represent the feelings that thousands of Metra Electric riders have about the commuter rail system.
“Please turn the air down, as passengers will turn to the Rock (Island Line) ? where it’s warm and friendly,” the letter writer urges Metra.
Since a June fire in Riverdale closed the southern portion of the Electric District for a week and a half and forced many riders to other lines such as the Rock Island, Metra has been faced with almost daily scrutiny from riders and the media who feel the South Suburbs don’t get nearly as many perks as do Metra’s north and west suburban riders.
A common complaint is not having bathrooms on Electric Line trains and in most of the district’s stations. Another: Riders have to put their ticket through turnstiles to enter and exit a station, as well as having the ticket checked on the train.
“Until just recently when we had the fire, I don’t think (Electric District riders) realized all that we were missing out on,” said Sandy Fron, a Richton Park resident who takes the Electric District from her hometown to the line’s terminus at Randolph and South Water streets in Chicago.
After receiving almost endless complaints from its south suburban riders, Metra has announced it will hold a series of town hall meetings to gauge how riders really feel about the service.
The first meeting is set for Oct. 27 at the Homewood Village Hall. A second and third meeting are also expected, but riders say all you need to do is ride the rails and take a look the conditions of stations to the north and west compared to those on the south.
‘Pardon our appearance’
Framed architectural drawings decorate a wooden partition at the Randolph Street station that covers an area under construction since March 2002.
A sign at the edge of the wooden partition promises that “a new Randolph Street station concourse is coming” and promises such “coming attractions” as “concourse stores and restaurants, improved access to Metra and South Shore, entrance to Millennium Park & Randolph Street, connections to the lakefront busway and access to the museum forecourt.”
“We hope you are not inconvenienced by our work during the redevelopment,” the sign continues.
Shawn LaBon, a Merrillville, Ind., rider, sat on a bench below a hanging construction light last week as she read a magazine.
She gave out a laugh when asked how long the station has been in its current unfinished condition.
“I’m not even sure,” she said, adding that she’s been riding the Electric District for at least five years. “It’s been a while.”
Fron said the station has been in its current condition for at least two or three years.
The condition, however, is still not as bad as some she’s seen on the CTA.
“It’s not that bad. I’ve seen worse,” said Fron, who works in the advertising department at the Chicago Sun-Times.
The Burlington Northern Sante Fe line, which serves the western suburbs, ends at Union Station, an Amtrak-owned station that features massive waiting areas, restrooms, bars, shops and restaurants.
The Heritage Corridor, which serves Lockport and Lemont, and the SouthWest Service, which serves Orland Park, Palos Park and Oak Lawn, also end at Union Station.
Within 15 seconds of walking into the Metra-designated area of Union Station, this reporter was asked by a Metra employee if he needed help finding a certain train.
That service wasn’t duplicated at any other station.
The Union Pacific North Line, which serves the northern suburbs, ends at the Ogilvie Transportation Center, which is similar to Union Station in that it offers restrooms, bars, shops and restaurants.
The Rock Island District line ends at the LaSalle Street station, which isn’t as large or flashy as the Ogilvie Transportation Center or Union stations, but still offers a 15-seat waiting area, restrooms and a concession stand. The latter two amenities are noticeably absent from just about any Electric District station, including the terminus at Randolph.
Electric District spokesmen did not respond to inquiries from The Star last week.
‘Out of the ordinary’
One of the most ornate and luxurious stations in the Metra system, most agree, lies in the heart of the South Suburbs in downtown Tinley Park.
The $4.5 million station, which features a flagstone brick exterior, antique lighting, an observation tower, brick-paved pathways and a full-service cafe, was completed in May using $2 million in Metra funding, $2 million from the Illinois Department of Transportation and about $400,000 in village funds.
The Oak Park Avenue station, which Metra rates 40th in boardings on all Metra lines, is a far cry from the other stations on the Rock Island, which consist mostly of small brick or wooden buildings that feature a ticket agent and a few benches.
The stations along the Union Pacific North Line are similar to those on the Rock Island line, except for some architectural upgrades such as flagstone brick at the Kenilworth Station (121st in boardings) and a clock tower at the Highland Park station (50th in boardings).
Tinley Park’s station seems to fit more in line with those along the Burlington Northern Sante Fe Line, which feature fountains in the parking lots of many stations, including the one in Westmont (37th in boardings) and downtown Downers Grove (fourth in boardings).
The station in Downers Grove also features a cafe and barbershop.
Such amenities are nowhere to be found along the Electric District.
Stations that have amenities, such as cafes or antique lighting, are usually paid for in part using funding from local communities, Metra spokeswoman Audrey Renteria said.
“Communities work closely with Metra during the design process,” Renteria said. “If there are, yes, we’ll say, amenities that the community wants, (municipalities) generally contribute above and beyond the given cost of building a station.”
Tinley Park Mayor Ed Zabrocki said Friday that his village would probably have a station even if it didn’t contribute some money, but the station wouldn’t be as extraordinary.
“We wanted something out of the ordinary,” Zabrocki said. “We knew some (Metra and state) money was available, and we threw in our own money to make it extraordinary.”
Metra upgrades stations based on a 1992 study it performed that looked at, among other things, ridership, the station’s condition and anticipated growth patterns, Renteria said.
That list is constantly updated to take current conditions and ridership into account, she said. Priority is also given to communities that are willing to upgrade the area around their stations with so-called transit orientated development, Renteria said.
“Any community that is interested in creating a TOD and wants to improve the conditions of the area around the station, we are more than happy to sit down with them and consider improvements,” Renteria said.
Pick up the phone?
A casual Metra rider, this reporter was forced to jump a turnstile at the Richton Park station (18th in boardings) on the Electric District because it wouldn’t accept a 10-ride ticket purchased at a Rock Island District station.
When asked why the turnstile accepts only tickets actually purchased at Electric District stations, Renteria asked, “Didn’t you pick up the passenger services phone?”
This reporter was unaware of such a phone, which allows a Metra employee stationed in a control center to unlock the turnstile.
The Electric District is the only Metra line to have such turnstiles.
After exiting at the 59th Street station, this reporter had to wait for a ticket agent to unlock the turnstile. The ticket agent also required the reporter to show his ticket, which was just punched on the train, before he left the station.
This reporter also had to use an unlocked handicapped gate in order to exit the Richton Park station because the turnstile did not accept his ticket.
Such problems are all too common, some riders say.
“These riders were trying to exit the train station,” Matteson’s Jill McAvoy wrote in a recent letter to the editor published in The Star after she said she saw five people jump a turnstile.
“They had already shown their tickets to a conductor on their ride from the city. If there were no turnstiles … jumping over them would not be necessary.
“Trust me, if riders to the west and north were forced to wait for some anonymous entity to deem them worthy to continue on to their homes after a long day at work, some of them would be hoisting their backsides over turnstiles as well.”
‘Bring extra hat, gloves’
Vernon Seymour, a Hammond, Ind., retiree, rides the South Shore Line to the 59th Street station two or three times a week in order to sightsee.
The 70-year-old said most of the time he can hardly find a place to sit. Nearly half of the benches at the station have broken wooden slats.
“They need to do something about these benches. They are hard,” Seymour said.
When you walk on the wooden platforms at the Hyde Park station, sections of rotting wood crumble under your feet.
Walking down the stairs last Tuesday, this reporter noticed a strong bleach smell emanating from under the stairs. A bubbling white liquid sat to the right of one of the stairways.
Outside the station, screens on broken windows rot while rusted wheel-less bikes remain chained to a bike rack steps from the station’s door.
Back up on the platform, an enclosed area to protect riders from the weather has rusted metal that will turn your clothing reddish-brown.
One side of the enclosed area features a door that closes only halfway, while the other has no door at all.
Three Metra employees were busy Tuesday trying to put up a new door, but they halted their attempt that afternoon after they realized it didn’t fit.
Brandon Simpson, a 16-year-old high school student who uses the station every day, said riders usually just face the weather.
“When the winter comes, people are going to be cold,” Simpson said. “Basically, you just bring an extra hat and gloves.”
The 59th Street station ranks 21st in total boardings on all Metra lines and is the busiest Electric District station next to Richton Park, according to Metra. The station is due for repair once reconstruction of other stations to the north ? where work is close to two years behind schedule ? is complete.
‘Luckily, I get in early’
With the exception of a few stations, it’s not easy to find a discernible difference between typical stations on various lines. Most feature a waiting area, which was generally clean, and with the exception of the Electric District, a ticket agent window which is generally open from the early to late morning.
Parking lots, however, are in varying condition.
Just about every station north of Robbins on the Rock Island line features only gravel parking lots. Besides the Evanston Main Street station, this reporter didn’t see any other gravel parking lots.
Sections of the lots along the northern end of the Rock Island District were also flooded, though it hadn’t rained in days.
B.L. Rogers, a Blue Island resident, said the lots get even worse in the winter.
At most stations, the most desirous parking spots are those closest to the station. That’s not the case at Rogers’ 127th Street Station.
“Right along the sides (of the track) there are places to park, but they pile snow up there in the winter,” Rogers said. “Luckily, I get there early enough to get into the other lot a block away.”
‘Everything points to the city’
Even before the Riverdale fire, Metra came under fire after it unveiled its plans for the Suburban Transit Access Route, a $1 billion line connecting a mostly affluent territory between O’Hare International Airport, the western suburbs and Joliet. Called the STAR Line, it would be the first suburb-to-suburb route in the Metra system.
After south suburban leaders spoke against that plan, and after riders reacted after the Riverdale fire, Metra Chairman Jeffrey Ladd ordered Metra to study its image in the South Suburbs.
Ladd agitated the South Suburbs even more when he was quoted as saying that Metra was “not a social welfare agency” worried about unemployment issues and access to jobs.
Lowell Culver, a retired Governor State University professor who now lives in the western suburbs, said there’s no excuse for leaving the South Suburbs out of a suburb-to-suburb line.
“The big job-creating machine is in DuPage County,” Culver said as he sat in the green cloth seat on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe line.
“How are you going to get somebody to work if they live in Richton Park?” Culver asked. “You would have to go all the way into downtown in order to catch a train to the northwest suburbs.
“You can just look at the (Metra service) map and see that everything points to the city.”