It was with much fanfare that the Chicago Transit Authority unveiled its plans to rebuild the train yard just north of the Howard Street station. The construction plan–complete with a new “state of the art” repair shop–was part of the CTA’s multimillion-dollar effort to link the Dan Ryan and Howard Street subway lines. At first most local officials cheered the plan.
“We don’t want to come across as uncaring public officials, but we are operating under tremendous time constraints,” says Bill Utter, a spokesman for the CTA. “We want to get as much work done before the winter sets in. And there are other projects which can’t go forward until this one is completed. I know it can’t be pleasant if you live around the Howard yard. But please, this will make the system better.”
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Local residents, however, are convinced that the CTA would never permit such noise all night in an upscale neighborhood. All in all, they say, it’s another example of the dirt, noise, and overall misery public officials expect low-income Chicagoans to take.
“Triangle Park, Chicago’s first community park,” reads the sign at the park’s edge. The sign also asks that users “keep the noise down in the evening hours.”
“We started getting this noise at all hours of the night–two o’clock, three o’clock, it didn’t matter,” says Arthur, who lives in an apartment managed by Peoples Housing that’s less than 20 feet from the project. “You would get trucks coming through here that were so big they made the buildings shake. The plaster was falling.
It wasn’t only the noise that bothered residents. Construction workers were also littering the park and blocking streets with their trucks. Many residents couldn’t get their cars in and out of the alleys.
The CTA hopes to have the project completed by summer. After that residents will only have to contend with the sounds of subway cars being repaired.
