Oak Park (800W/100S)
Oak Park Avenue and South Boulevard, Village of Oak Park

Service Notes:

Green Line: Lake

Quick Facts:

Address: 100 S. Oak Park Avenue
Established: January 25, 1901
Original Line: Lake Street Elevated Railroad
Previous Names: none

Skip-Stop Type:

Station

Rebuilt: 1962
Status: In Use

History: The Oak Park station house interior hasn't changed much between there views looking northeast from the unpaid area -- in 1963 about a year after opening above (for a larger view, click here) and on May 30, 2003 below (for a larger view, click here) -- save perhaps for new turnstiles and conduit on the ceiling. (Top photo from the CTA Collection; bottom photo by Graham Garfield) The first Oak Park station was built as part of the Lake Street Elevated's 1901 extension along South Boulevard in Oak Park. The stations on this portion consisted of island stations and platforms constructed of wood. The narrow station houses with their clapboard paneling and eaved peaked roofs emptied out onto an island platform covered by a peaked canopy that was actually a continuation of the station house's roof. The tall steel poles that carried the "L"'s overhead whites occasionally poked through the canopy, interrupting the platform. Utilizing the overhead trolley wire for safety purposes due to grade-level running, this situation began to cause a number of crossing accidents (usually not the trains' fault), especially when the parallel Chicago & North Western RR elevated their right-of-way, creating a blind corner. This erupted into yet another bone of contention between the suburban village and the "L" company, but also included the City of Chicago, where tracks also ran at grade from 52nd Avenue to Central. Finally, in 1962 the tracks were elevated onto an embankment, requiring the demolition of the old original wooden stations and the construction of new ones. The new ones are small, tucked underneath the concrete embankment. The new Lake Street stations had individual tile colors, with Oak Park sporting light brown glazed tile, both on the exterior and the interior walls. The station entrance is on the northeast corner of Oak Park and South Blvd., south of the embankment. Natural light is allowed into the small structure with large Plexiglas windows. The interior is small, with room only for a stainless steel agent's booth and a couple turnstiles, the latter of which is now replaced with Transit Card turnstiles. The platform is of the island variety, with a wooden floor and a steel canopy supported by I-beams. The platform lights are unusual, found only in Oak Park suburban stations, with a thin pole and a conical head with a convex saucer as a cap. The Lake Street "L" and the rest of the Green Line closed in 1994 for a two year refurbishment, but a CTA® citizens advisory task force recommended that Oak Park (along with Austin, Laramie, Homan and Halsted) be shut down and never reopened to make the interval between stations standardized one mile and to save money. But apparently the citizens and city fathers of the City of Oak Park made a big enough ruckus of it that in 1996 it reopened with few alterations. The station signs are new, but instead of gray (the current standard), they are green with white lettering, possibly denoting their place on the Green Line, but very much resembling the old B station signs from the A/B skip stop era of the late-1970s to mid-1990s. However, Oak Park station, along with Austin and Ridgeland stations in Oak Park, reopened without modifications to make the stations handicapped-accessible. CTA® officials contended they were not mandated by federal law to make all stations handicapped-accessible because they made only cosmetic changes to Oak Park and the two other suburban stations while carrying out the $350 million Green Line facelift. Eighteen of the line's 27 stations -- all stations except the three in Oak Park and some Loop stations shared with other routes -- were eventually made handicapped-accessible, including the Marion Street entrance to the Harlem/Lake terminal in downtown Oak Park. The other Oak Park stations, at Austin, Ridgeland and Oak Park, were not scheduled to be made accessible because the transit authority did not have the money, CTA® Chairman Valerie Jarrett said in 1996. Oak Park residents with disabilities protested the lack of accessibility after the project, and Village President Lawrence Christmas agreed to seek funds to make all the Green Line stations in Oak Park handicapped-accessible but to no avail: the three stations are still currently not ADA-compliant.

 

The Oak Park station platform looking west on May 30, 2003. The former Chicago & NorthWestern (now Union Pacific) Railroad runs parallel on the embankment, making these and neighboring station platforms good railfan train-watching spots. The signage here is somewhat interesting: The symbol signs on the columns are left over from the old KDR scheme, and are blue to denote Oak Park's former status as an "AB Station" in the now-defunct skip-stop scheme. The station name signs follow the Current Graphic Design in their format, but not color: the tabs are green as they should be, not the name sign itself is also green instead of the standard medium gray. For a larger view, click here. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

oakpark-lake03.jpg (82k) The entrance to the Oak Park station, looking east from Oak Park Avenue along the elevated embankment. All of the Lake Street stations from the 1962 elevation look largely the same, except for varying tile colors. (Photo from the Chicago Transit Authority Collection)

oakpark-lake04.jpg (84k) The Oak Park island platform, looking west in 1999. Note the concrete strip on the left, to the south of the inbound "L" track: There used to be a station at Oak Park Avenue for the Chicago & NorthWestern (predecessor to the Union Pacific, on whose embankment the "L" line was elevated onto in 1962) and that is the remnant of a former platform. (Photo from the Chicago Transit Authority Collection)