Jefferson Park Transit Center

The Jefferson Park Transit Center is an intermodal passenger transport center in the Jefferson Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. It serves as a station for rail and also as a bus terminal. Jefferson Park Transit Center's railroad station is on Metra's Union Pacific/Northwest Line, with the station located at 4963 North Milwaukee Avenue. Jefferson Park is away from Ogilvie Transportation Center in downtown Chicago, the inbound terminus of the Union Pacific/Northwest Line. Under Metra's zone-based fare system, Jefferson Park is in zone B. As of 2018, Jefferson Park is the 97th busiest of Metra's 236 non-downtown stations, with an average of 510 weekday boardings.
It is also an 'L' station on the Blue Line, which stops at a single island platform in the median of the Kennedy Expressway at 4917 North Milwaukee Avenue. Blue Line trains run at intervals of 2–7 minutes during rush hour, and take 25 minutes to travel to the Loop. From 1970 to 1983, this was the terminal for West-Northwest Line trains once the service was extended from Logan Square.

Station layout

History

The original Jefferson Park Station was built in the late 1850s, by the Chicago, St. Paul and Fond du Lac Railroad at ground level, and became part of the Chicago and North Western Railway when the CStP&F went bankrupt in 1859. C&NW raised it above ground in 1958. On February 1, 1970, Jefferson Park's 'L' station opened as the northwestern terminus of the Kennedy Expressway extension of the CTA's Milwaukee Line, as an addition to the Jefferson Park Chicago & North Western depot. The station was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. In 1983, the branch was extended past Jefferson Park to. The station was renovated in 2000–2001, and an elevator added to aid access. In 2005, a monument to Thomas Jefferson was placed along the station's entrance along Milwaukee Avenue.

Structure

The Metra station has three tracks, a side platform for the inbound local track, and an island platform for the center express track and outbound local track. The side platform serves inbound trains, and the southwest platform serves outbound trains as well as the center track which carries both express trains in both directions as well as trains that short-turn at Des Plaines. However, only one train stops at Jefferson Park on the center track on weekdays, as the station is bypassed by express trains. A station house open from 5:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. is located on the inbound platform. There is no ticket agent at Jefferson Park, so tickets must be purchased on board the train. Jefferson Park has a park and ride lot operated by Imperial Parking.
The Blue Line station is located in the median of the Kennedy Expressway, and like all other stations on this segment, has two tracks and one island platform. A middle track exists in between the operating tracks from the station to Foster Avenue, and is used for short-turning trains during weekday rush hours. The middle track is a remnant of a small storage yard that existed from 1970 to 1983 when Jefferson Park was the line's northern terminus.