CTA's Attack of the Street Walruses

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 This is what $100 million looks like.  It's a rendering of the replacement 8800-square-foot mezzanine for the Red Line Clark and Division subway station, originally opened in 1943 and largely unrejuvenated ever since.  That's up from the $86.6 million price tag quoted in a CTA press release just this past January.  If the new station lasts as long as the old one, and assuming half of those using the station will be boarding and paying a fare, it will cost 50 cents for every one of the 4,000 per-day passengers over the next 70 years.  (The CTA is projecting usage will double.)   But then again, a CDOT flyer distributed by 42nd ward Brendan Reilly this past weekend quotes a cost of $41.3 million, so we've already made over half of the expense disappear.

As with the Chicago and, most recently, Grand stations on the Red Line subway, the contrast between the old, dank and dreary stations and their replacements is like night and day.  The platforms, while constrained to the original size, appear more spacious and welcoming, and the mezzanines are, in physical fact, vastly increased in size and openness.  Below ground, everything is sleek and modern.  It's only when you move above ground that you get this . . .

Call it Daley retro.  Word got out during the reign of Richard M. Daley that the mayor was partial to "traditional" design, and while the rap wasn't entirely deserved, the result was a lot of unnecessary pandering with such things as the Botero-limbed bus shelters designed by Robert Stern, and the street enclosures for escalators and stairs up from the subway.

The best that can be said about them is that they're lighter than the box they came in . . .

Other than that, could anything be more maladroit for a city that prides itself on its design?  Encountering one of these objects is like walking down the street and finding a giant walrus lounging on the sidewalk, loudly braying at passersby.

Is this really the best we can do?  As proven by the recently opened Ross Barney Green Line stop at Morgan Street, and this design concept for the intended Loop L station at Washington and Wabash . . .

. . . the answer is, clearly, no.  The way they dominate the sidewalk view, these subway entrances are more than just enclosures - they're emblems, and brazenly dishonest ones, at that.  They misrepresent the bright, streamlined design to be found in the actual station below.  In this "less is more" city, they're like giant billboards refuting Chicago's pretensions to architectural excellence.  On pain of fines, you're expected to clean up after your dog no matter how big the turds, but these huge, stinking - and inescapable - excrescences seem to enjoy blanket immunity. to plop at will.

At these prices, the CTA and CDOT need to step up to the plate.  Chicago deserves better.