Metra gets state funding for two new stations in Chicago

Metra gets state funding for two new stations in Chicago NEWSWIRE

By Angela Cotey | April 17, 2019

| Last updated on November 3, 2020

An inbound Metra Union Pacific North train passes through the Rogers Park station on April 13, 2019. Metra announced it is receiving funding for two new stations in Chicago, one of them just south of Rogers Park on the UP North line.

TRAINS: David Lassen

CHICAGO — Metra announced today that funds from the state of Illinois would allow it to build two long-awaited stations in Chicago.

The new stops will be at Peterson Avenue near Ridge Avenue on the Union Pacific North line, and at Auburn Park near 79th Street on the Rock Island District.

Engineering work for the Peterson stop, between the existing Rogers Park and Ravenswood stations on the UP North, is nearly complete. Metra says it will put the project out to bid this summer with construction beginning later this year or early next year.

The Auburn Park station will fill a gap between the 35^th/Lou Jones and Gresham stations on the Rock Island, and will be about a mile north of the stop at Gresham. Its engineering is about 60% complete, and the Metra board on Wednesday approved $1.1 million in funding to complete the design, with the goal of beginning construction in spring 2020.

Metra had intended to build both stations with funds from a 2009 bond program, but that funding was held up in the state’s budget woes and then cut in 2017, the commuter agency said in a press release. The funds were restored in recent budgets, and the state informed Metra it was releasing $15 million for the Peterson station and $20 million for Auburn Park.