Bulls home games to get better Mass Transit access in 2020

This is personally uplifting news that’s a long time coming, and broke this morning by Crain’s Chicago Business:

City and Chicago Transit Authority officials today are set to announce the CTA Green Line is getting a new station, at Damen and Lake streets, just a block and a half north of the United Center.

Design of the new station is to begin summer, with construction in the third quarter of 2018 and the station projected to open in mid-2020.

As a car-less Chicago resident, I consider transit access a passion far more than, like, this moribund professional basketball team that plays at the United Center (rest assured we will see John Paxson at this station opening!) .

It’s not my totally preferred location, but it’s an improvement. As the article details, there are existing CTA stops (both Green and Blue lines) that are a half-mile away, which sounds trivial but keep in mind that Bulls and Blackhawks games are winter sports.

Here, I made a map. The upcoming station is at the top-left.

BlogABull.com

As you can see, an alternate location off of the Pink Line (where there is also a huge gap in stops) would be much closer to the stadium. But it sounds like the city is rationalizing this Damen location as it greater impacting the other, ya know, 250 days in the year where there isn’t an event.

But the focus here is on going to a Bulls game. It’s a bit easier now. The Green Line begins west at Harlem in Oak Park, and loops around downtown. If you work in the loop this is a much better option than taking the Madison Ave. bus, because bus traffic is awful.

And the more options to reduce the amount of cars (and potentially drunk drivers), the better. Maybe in the future the Bulls and Blackhawks ownership can chip in some of the money and parking lot land to build that Pink Line station too! Dare to dream (eh actually the Bulls have taught me dreaming is a waste of time).