CTA supports reopening Racine station on Green Line

Since becoming CTA president in 2015, I’ve ensured that the CTA views transit improvements as important investments not only in transportation, but, just as importantly, in equity.

It’s a driving principle, and why I’ve pursued a wide range of projects on the city’s South and West Sides, from station improvements for the Cottage Grove Green Line and 95th Street Red Line to additional bus service on several South Side bus routes, to name just a few.

It’s also why CTA has been working very closely with local and federal officials to identify funding to advance planning for a reopened Racine Green Line station. In fact, the CTA assisted former Congressman Bobby Rush to request $2 million in federal funding to pursue detailed planning and conceptual designs for a reopened station.

As the Sun-Times noted in its editorial “Reopen long-shuttered Green Line L station in Englewood,” and as the CTA has always expressed, the opening or re-opening of a rail station can invigorate communities and attract new jobs, opportunities and development. Recent investments like the Cermak-McCormick Place and Morgan Green Line stations, and the reconstruction of the Wilson Red/Purple Line station, have shown this to be true. Those investments have been particularly beneficial to the South and West Side, from the complete reconstruction of the Red Line South and a new 95th Street terminal, to planned improvements to the Cottage Grove and 43rd Street Green Line stations.

The CTA, and the city, are fully committed to pursuing a reopened Racine Green Line station and making it a vital component of the community’s revitalization.

Dorval R. Carter, Jr.
President, CTA

Persuading Durbin on press freedom

John Cusack’s open letter to Sen. Dick Durbin asking him to advance the PRESS Act, would have been more persuasive if he included real examples of government spying and suppression of the media. For example, he could have mentioned that journalist James Rosen was outrageously surveilled by the Obama administration along with many other reporters whose phone records were seized.

In addition, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta recently stated he was visited by the FBI who fed him misinformation about the Hunter Biden laptop controversy so Facebook would not promote it before the 2020 election.

Now if that wouldn’t convince Sen. Durbin, I don’t know what would.

Ken Marier, Lakeview