Down With the Brown (And Blue and Red and Green)

By Matt Wood in News on Aug 16, 2006 3:32PM

After six months of construction, the CTA Brown Line's Kedzie and Rockwell stations should have reopened this morning at 4:45 AM (if they didn't someone tell us). The CTA is still adding a few finishing touches like signage, more fencing, and ooh, a compass rose. The spiffy new stations feature glass station houses, new platforms, better lighting, and those nifty blue rubber edges that remind you to back up lest you get decapitated by a speeding train. The most significant upgrades though were probably the accessibility features likes ramps and improved entrances. To get a sense of the renovations, the CTA Tattler points us to some fine photos of the construction by Zesmerelda. But don't rejoice yet if you ride the far northern branch of the Brown Line, because construction on the Francisco and Kimball stations will begin soon.

In a miraculous bit of serendipity, the RedEye's Kyra Kyles has written a feature on the best and worst CTA stations at which to wait for a train. She pegs the Red Line stops at Chicago and Roosevelt as her favorites, while giving poor marks to the Monroe and Belmont stations. Chicagoist has always been partial to the Clark and Lake stops at the Thompson Center because because we get to exit out of the Loop's funkiest building, though all that vertical movement on the escalators can make it difficult to make a quick transfer from the Blue Line to the Brown, Green, or Orange.

So which CTA stops are your favorites and why? Which ones do you hate? Which ones smell like pee? Is that a good or a bad thing? Be honest, nobody's judging you here. If we get enough responses, Chicagoist can summarize our extremely scientific findings and submit a report to Carole Brown, which we're sure will result in sweeping improvements to the entire system.