Building Futures is about identifying projects, ideas and innovation that will create lasting positive change within th eBuilding community and the communities it serves. For many years I have had the opportunity to visit the Northside of Chicago in the Bryn Mawr and Lawrence area and have driven under the El tracks every two weeks for years. Many people are not aware that a massive change to the mass transit system that is being built from Belmont to Howard. New structural supports, tracks, switches and controls, several brand new stations with customer amenities, will Bring long overdue and much needed improvements to the quality of service, ambience and land use to the City of Chicago and the customers of the CTA. I lived in the City from 1980 to 1992 and during that time had a close relationship to the CTA El. I owned a house three buildings away from the Belmont EL stop, started a community group by cleaning up the land along Fletcher Street under the EL tracks, and in ~1990, negotiated the first parking arrangement with the CTA (with Bob Belcaster and his lieutenants) to have neighborhood parking under the EL tracks. Like many institutions, most people have a love hate relationship with the transit system. Everyone who has travelled and experienced clean, quiet, time, and even beautiful mass transit have complained for decades.The current RPM investment and construction will hopefully solve these challenges and not only improve the riders experience, but make the EL a beautiful feature of the City scape, and return all the land under the EL to constructive use.
This is such an important project for Chicago, that different phases and progress will be featured in additional Building Futures .