Like Talking to a Wall
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Oberman concedes that CTA officials faced a difficult task at Fullerton, the largest and most costly station-reconstruction project on the line. The highest priority is to make the station accessible by installing elevators. The Americans With Disabilities Act required transit authorities to make all “key” stations accessible by the end of 2000, and that includes the Fullerton station, where the Brown, Red, and Purple lines converge. “Fullerton is the last remaining key station in Chicago that’s not accessible,” says Kevin Irvine, an advocate with Equipped for Equality, a disability rights group. The ADA doesn’t require that other stations be made accessible until they’re rebuilt, and right now only two Brown Line stations north of the Merchandise Mart–Kimball and Western–are. In December 2000 the CTA got an extension giving it until December 2008 to make the Fullerton station accessible.
The platforms in the station are too narrow to accommodate an elevator and still give wheelchair users room to maneuver. So the main challenge has always been to design wider platforms while minimizing the amount spent on moving the tracks and buying and tearing down adjacent buildings.
Oberman and the architects presented their plan to the CTA, but after numerous meetings and phone calls the CTA rejected it. According to CTA documents, the architects’ 20-foot platforms were too narrow to conform to federal mandates. The documents said the tracks couldn’t bend toward the Dominick’s building because the existing curve was blind–motormen didn’t have a clear view of the platform and tracks as they pulled trains into the station. They said slipped platforms were a bad idea because they make security more difficult–a guard at the end of one platform has farther to run to stop a crime happening at the end of the other. They also said that the platforms had to be 520 feet long because someday the CTA might want to run ten-car trains. The CTA did, however, agree to reduce the width of the platforms, to 22 feet for the southbound and 20 for the northbound.
Now Eugene Schulter, alderman of the 47th Ward, plans to hold City Council hearings on the station closings. Brown Line riders have been letting him know they’re not happy. That gives Oberman hope that at the very least the CTA may be forced to reconsider its Fullerton design.”I’m not saying they have to adopt our specific plan,” he says. “I’m just saying what we’ve been saying all along–there are more efficient ways to build this station for a lot less money.”
