59th Street Metra Rebuild In Hyde Park Will Bring Station, Lane Closures Next Year

HYDE PARK — An overhaul of Metra’s 59th Street station is set to begin early next year, and the station and lanes of nearby streets will close while the project unfolds.

A $74 million project to make the 59th Street station accessible, remove and replace its head houses and platforms, reopen a long-closed entrance on 60th Street and repair the viaducts will begin construction in early 2027, Metra officials said this week.

The station will be closed for construction, and passengers will be redirected to the accessible 55th-56th-57th or non-accessible 63rd Street stations nearby, Metra project manager Tim Savery said.

“We determined that closing the station was going to be best,” Savery said during a University of Chicago community meeting Tuesday at the Crown School of Social Work. “This is because it shaves a significant amount of time off completion of the project, it helped save costs and … we believe that it is the best choice for passenger safety.”

Partial closures are also expected along 59th and 60th streets during construction.

Fifty-ninth Street will only be open to westbound traffic between Harper Avenue and the Vista Homes apartments. Sixtieth Street will only be open to eastbound traffic between Blackstone Avenue and the parking lot at Stony Island Avenue.

The 60th Street entrance to the station, which was closed before Metra took over the old Illinois Central railroad in 1987, will reopen when the renovation is complete. The 59th and 60th street entrances will “mirror” each other in design, Savery said.

Metra will install elevators at the entrances, relocate staircases, widen doors and install button-activated openers to meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements.

The 59th Street station is not currently accessible under the act. The nearest accessible stop is 55th-56th-57th.

The agency will also waterproof the bridge to prevent water leaks around the station entrances, fix cracked viaduct columns and improve lighting near the entrances as part of the renovation.

The Federal Transit Administration announced in 2022 that it would grant Metra $37.6 million toward the project.

The work is also supported by at least $20 million in state funding and $2.5 million from UChicago, according to Metra. The university’s 2011 funding agreement predates the Obama Presidential Center’s construction in Jackson Park.

The Chicago Plan Commission approved the overhaul last August. The project’s estimated completion in 2030 would come 11 years since the rebuild was announced, due in part to a federal review similar to one completed for the Obama Presidential Center.

The review concluded the renovation’s modern design will have “adverse effects” by changing the look and feel of the Midway Plaisance and the rail line, which date back to the late 19th century.

Plans to mitigate these effects include an interpretive display showcasing commuter rail history, a landscape restoration plan for the Midway Plaisance and transparent facades at new entrances, the Hyde Park Herald reported last year.

The 59th Street station sits on the Metra Electric line, along which Metra began implementing service increases last month. The changes mean trains in each direction are now scheduled to stop at stations in Hyde Park every 20 minutes, on average.