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Many Rail Transit Lines pass within just a few blocks of the Metra Electric 115th St. / Kensington Av. Station.
Instead of them all having different stations scattered sort of randomly about the area, a much better idea that has been successfully implemented in other places would be a Regional Transit Center like Jefferson Park on Chicago's Northwest Side, or Harlem/Marion Station in downtown Oak Park.
The Kensington Transit Center will provide rail passenger transfer and local community access to CTA Red Line and Gray Line trains to downtown, Gray Line shuttles to west to Blue Island and east to Hegewisch, Metra University Park and Southeast Service trains, South Shore Line trains to Gary/Chicago Airport and Northern Indiana, Amtrak, and possible Peotone Airport, Kankakee, and HSR trains.
Also CTA, Pace, and maybe Greyhound and other buses; and other local transit services.
A Transit Center of this type would also attract Residential and Commercial Transit Oriented Development, and possibly Hotels and Convention Facilities.
This would cause many new jobs to be created, WITHIN the Lake Calumet Area Community (designated as a "Regional Community Center" by the Northeast Illinois Planning Commission).
With changes in the Red Line Extension plan (running only to Kensington, instead of 130th St. - Kensington to 130th St. segment replaced by the Hegewisch Shuttle), and Red Line funding appropriated, both the entire 22 mile Gray Line system, and the new Kensington Transit Center, could be created within the existing $600 million Red Line cost estimates.
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