Austinites will have to wait at least two additional years for the Blue Line Central Avenue station to reopen.
As the regular Illinois General Assembly legislative wrapped up at the end of May, both houses passed a bill that made some changes to the transit funding and reform bill passed in the dead of night last Halloween.
The original bill mandated several projects throughout the Chicago area. On the West Side, it required CTA to reopen the Central Blue Line station, which was closed in 1973, no later than Jan. 1, 2029. It also required reopening of a “Leclair Avenue location” entrance by the same deadline. Leclaire Avenue doesn’t cross the Blue Line, but the Cicero Blue Line station’s west entrance, which has been closed since 1977, leads to Lavergne Avenue.
State Rep. Camille Lilly (D-78th) previously told Austin Weekly News that, as the transit bill was being developed, a group of legislators got together and agreed on a list of projects they believed would benefit neighborhoods and suburbs that haven’t seen much investment. The two Austin projects were on the list.
When asked about the Leclaire Avenue issue last December, Lilly said there was a possibility that drafting errors crept into the bill as legislators scrambled to finalize it before the end of the 2025 veto session. She indicated that the General Assembly would clean up the language this year.
The trailer bill passed on May 31 mainly fixed typos and errors, including correcting the location of the western Cicero Station entrance. But it also made more substantial changes, including moving the deadline for both projects to Jan. 1, 2031.
The Central station is located near Loretto Hospital, where Lilly is a long-time employee. It’s also within walking distance of Columbus Park and the factories and other industrial businesses south of the Eisenhower Expressway.
The Laverne Avenue entrance is closer to Michele Clark Magnet High School and Broader Urban Involvement and Leadership Development (BUILD) Chicago headquarters than the main Cicero Avenue entrance.
The Central station closed on Sept. 2, 1973, as part of the series of service cuts that mostly affected stations on the South and West Sides. CTA made the Lavergne Avenue entrance exit-only on Jan. 12, 1973, and closed it completely on May 16, 1977
Since then, both structures have been sealed off and left to decay.
Both versions of the bill require CTA to either renovate or rebuild the new structures. CTA would most likely need to bring the Central el station into Americans with Disabilities act compliance. Unlike most West Side Blue Line stations, it had stairs rather than ramps.
