CTA Opens New Cermak-McCormick Place Green Line Station
By JoshMogerman in News on Feb 10, 2015 5:00PM
The first weekday commute at the new Cermak-McCormick Place stop on the CTA’s Green Line seemed to be a quiet one. With construction ending over the weekend, riders seemed to have not caught on to the new station being open yet.
That gave us a chance to get a good look. And we liked what we saw: a sleek, modern platform inside an enclosed tube that looks a lot like a butterfly cocoon from the outside. Digital signage is easy to view and seemingly improved acoustics meant that we could actually understand the announcements coming out of the loud speakers.
The Green Line now has a double dose of train tunnels, with 35th-Bronzeville-IIT as the next stop south of Cermak. The corrugated tube associated with that station, to minimize the impacts of CTA train vibrations on the many Mies van der Rohe buildings on the IIT campus, has become iconic. But we think the newer stop’s design is much friendlier.
Even if South Loopers do not immediately flock to the new station, the crowds will eventually come. It was largely built with an eye towards McCormick Place conventioneers, Motor Row tourists and DePaul basketball fiends the city hopes will descend on the area in the coming years.