CTA construction update: Racine, Bryn Mawr and Austin projects progress; agency outlines station accessibility funding and digital signage pilot

Bill Mooney, chief infrastructure officer at the Chicago Transit Authority, told the ADA advisory committee the agency is advancing a suite of All Stations Accessibility Program (ASAP) projects, including multiple stations now in construction and another set actively in design.

Mooney said the program’s construction-phase projects include work on the Red and Blue Lines and the Green Line; he listed stations currently in construction or recently moving into the construction phase and described visible progress at Racine station, where new precast concrete siding, an expanded elevated station house, and elevator hoist and hoist-way installations are underway. Photographs shown to the committee depicted a new station house, a grand stairwell connecting the elevator to the platform, mechanical rooms and finishes, and the elevator hoist space that will support a counterweight system.

The Austin Green Line accessibility project has begun advanced utility relocation work and formal groundbreaking took place March 31, Mooney said. The committee was shown images of excavation, utility relocation and the ceremonial event. Mooney said the Austin work is among multiple ASAP packages advancing this year, and indicated many stations are progressing toward openings later this summer when construction milestones permit.

Mooney also described a digital signage pilot tied to the Red-Purple Modernization (RPM) project that will bring live station-level service alerts and elevator outage information into stations through networked displays. He noted the initial pilot boards will not include text-to-audio capability but that the agency is working on future iterations that could add audio; committee members suggested QR codes as an interim way to provide audio access via a rider’s phone.

Irma Gomez Ferro, CTA’s ADA compliance manager, provided funding details in the facilitator’s report: CTA’s Austin reconstruction project budget was presented as $25.6 million, funded in part by the federal Surface Transportation Program (STP) and Illinois’ Rebuild Illinois capital program. Irma told the committee STP contributed $20.3 million and Rebuild Illinois $5.3 million to that project. She also said CTA had funding secured for the stations identified in phase one of the ASAP plan and about half of the stations in phase two, and that the agency had secured roughly $37 million for elevator replacements and modernization efforts.

Committee members asked whether accessible sidewalks, curb ramps and coordination with Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) and Cook County would accompany station work; Mooney said coordination with CDOT and other partners is part of construction planning and cited Oak Park/Chicago border work on the Austin project as an example where curb and corner realignment will be part of the station approach.

Mooney said community preview opportunities were likely mid- to late-May (timeline subject to weather and final scheduling) and that the digital signage pilot would provide the agency a real-time feed of service updates into stations to reduce reliance on manual procedures such as handwritten whiteboards.

The committee did not vote on project approvals during the presentation; the report was informational and staff committed to follow up on accessibility details such as audio access for pilot signage and coordination of adjacent sidewalks and curb ramps.