The CTA is set to begin a $19 million upgrade to a Lincoln Square Brown Line station, and that will mean some weekend service disruptions to parts of the line.
Construction will begin this summer on the Western station and is expected to last through late 2025, CTA officials said, without providing a specific start date. During that time, weekend daytime Brown Line service will at times be cut between Kimball, at the end of the line, and Western, the agency said.
Details about when service will be cut will be made public beforehand, when plans are finalized, the CTA said.
Construction will include a new space and canopy for passengers waiting for buses at the station. The main entrance of the station will get new ADA-compliant doors, the tracks will be painted, platforms rehabilitated, the roof replaced and platform canopy repaired. Sidewalks will be replaced in front of the station, and lighting nearby upgraded.
Inside the station, a section of the Berlin Wall on display will be highlighted by new accent lighting, the CTA said. The station floors, walls, elevator cabs, stairs and customer service kiosk will also undergo work.
Along with the service interruptions, bus stops will be relocated while work is underway on the bus turnaround area.
In a statement, Ald. Matt Martin, 47th, said his constituents had been calling for years for updates to the station, and the work would complement a rebuilding of the plaza and parking lot next to the station.
In 2023, riders got on the train at the Western station more than 695,000 times, out of 10.5 million entries across the Brown Line outside the Loop. The line — which runs from Albany Park to Lincoln Square, Lakeview, Lincoln Park and downtown — is among the busier CTA train lines, though it doesn’t provide as many rides as the bustling, 24-hour Red and Blue lines.
In October, a Tribune analysis of CTA train service cuts found weekday Brown Line schedules had been slashed more than any other train line compared with prepandemic: by 32%.
“As we continue the work of increasing ridership systemwide, our goal is to make capital improvements that will be appreciated by current bus and rail customers and encourage new riders to utilize the system,” CTA President Dorval Carter said in a statement.
