Forever Grand

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It was originally supposed to be finished by 1998 at a cost of $15 million.  By 2005, the estimate was up to $29 million with work still not started - construction didn't actually begin until early 2008.  It's made a mess of the major intersection of Grand and State ever since.  The cost is now up to $67 million and it's slated to be finished by the end of the year, but I wouldn't bet good money on it. 

Yes, it's the CTA's Grand stop on the Red Line, and as you can see from the photo above, there's still a lot of work to be done amidst the subterranean complex of mains, conduit, and ancient Roman catacombs. 

In addition to the glacial work on the revamped mezzanine, which will be expanded an additional 2,000 square feet, the re tiling and vaulting of the platforms is lasting longer than it took Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel, with commuters waiting for their trains amidst bare walls, plywood on the floor, and a lighting system of electrician's lamps, year after year.  It looked like this in June of 2009 . . .

and remained uncompleted sixteen months later, in October of 2010 . . .

As you can see from the new sections on display in the photo above, the reconstructed design, as it slowly unveils itself, is quite attractive, and the mezzanine should eventually look something like this . . .

The station originally opened in October 1943 as part of the new Howard subway line.  At the heart of the revitalized River North, Grand is now the 8th busiest station on the Red Line, with a daily load of 8,000 passengers.  If the reconstructed station lasts as long as the original,  it will cost about 34 cents for every passenger passing through its turnstiles over the next 68 years.

It could be worse.  The Red Line's Washington stop closed in 2006 for construction of a new "superstation" under Block 37.    Two years later, with no end in sight to escalating cost overruns, the city shut the project down, a money pit consigned to mothballs. Five years after it was "temporarily" shut down,  and now mutilated to integrate with the unicorn superstation, the Washington stop remains closed.  $300 million dollars of your tax dollars down the tube, with nothing to show for it.  Makes the Grand station's $67 million price tag look like a bargain, doesn't it?