We're Finally Getting A United Center L Station
By Mae Rice in News on Feb 9, 2017 3:45PM
No longer will we have to brave a trafficky L desert to see the Blackhawks or Kanye West or the batshit Game of Thrones orchestra. The CTA is slated to announce a new L station at United Center on Thursday, according to reports.
The Green Line station is slated for Damen and Lake, less than two blocks north of United Center, and is scheduled to open in 2020. Construction on the station will start in the latter half of 2018.
The city will pay for it with roughly $50 million in Tax Increment Funding (TIF).
TIF funds are pulled from property taxes in an area where the city wants to encourage development. These funds are then used to subsidize projects unlikely to happen without government intervention. It's a controversial system; critics say TIFs amount to a shadow city budget. However, as Greg Hinz notes at Crain's, using TIFs for transit renovations hasn't typically generated much opposition.
This one, especially, feels long overdue, even to Mayor Rahm Emanuel. "The new station at Damen and Lake will fill a longstanding need for better transit operations," he said in a statement.