February 20, 2007

UIC Helping With Red Line Redesign

Planners and urban designers from the University of Illinois at Chicago are advising the Edgewater community on a potential redesign of four CTA Red Line stations and surrounding retail districts.

UIC's City Design Center and Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement will lead public workshops on improving the Granville, Thorndale, Bryn Mawr and Berwyn stations. The stations are among the CTA's oldest, with crumbling structures, vacant retail stalls, broken sidewalks, and inadequate access for disabled passengers, according to UIC planners.

"We've developed a game-style program for the workshops that is highly visual and interactive," said Brent Ryan, co-director of the City Design Center. "The residents, working in teams, will move among
several work stations where facilitators will help them manipulate physical models to address development on three scales: the stations, the retail mix and distribution, and the clustering of buildings and open space."

"We believe our community outreach and engagement will be productive for Edgewater residents and all Red Line riders," said Janet Smith, associate professor of urban planning and policy and co-director of the Voorhees Center.

The workshop for the Bryn Mawr and Berwyn stations is scheduled for March 5, 7 to 9 p.m. at St. Andrew's Church in Edgewater. The workshop for the Granville and Thorndale stations will be held March 12 from 7 to 9 p.m. at Loyola University's Lakeshore Campus.

Other workshops will be scheduled for late April or early May. Organizers will present recommendations based on the first workshops and gather feedback for a final proposal to be announced in August.
The nonprofit Edgewater Development Corporation will sponsor the workshops with funding secured by State Rep. Harry Osterman. To register, call (773) 506-4016.

UIC ranks among the nation's top 50 universities in federal research funding and is Chicago's largest university with 25,000 students, 12,000 faculty and staff, 15 colleges and the state's major public
medical center. A hallmark of the campus is the Great Cities Commitment, through which UIC faculty, students and staff engage with community, corporate, foundation and government partners in hundreds of programs to improve the quality of life in metropolitan areas around the world.

- UIC -