Winnetka commuters who use the Hubbard Woods Metra station now have a safer way to stand on, or get on and off of, the station’s east platform, thanks to projects that began earlier this year.
Village President Chris Rintz announced recently that projects undertaken by Metra and Union Pacific were completed in late September.
“It looks a lot better,” Rintz said of temporary station stairs and new platform panels during an Oct. 2 council meeting. “It still looks like a dump, but it’s a better dump.”
Assistant Village Manager Megan Pierce said the safety upgrades, for which village officials lobbied with Metra after residents complained in June about dangerous conditions, didn’t include other work.
“The goal was not beautification, or a renovation project,” she said. “It was to make the station safer.”
A Metra official said this summer that it would install temporary prefabricated metal stairs on the south end of the station’s east platform, replacing a staircase that had rusted through in some sections. Metra also planned to put new metal treads on a short set of stairs that runs from the station’s pedestrian walkway into the Winnetka neighborhood immediately east of the station.
The safety upgrades started in July and the stair installation was completed earlier this summer, Pierce said.
Union Pacific, which owns the station, replaced crumbling panels on its platforms. That work was completed Sept. 22, according to an Oct. 17 email from Kristin South, a media relations director with the company.
Meg Thomas-Reile, public relations manager for Metra, said the work cost $250,000. South said Union Pacific provided $200,000 of that.
Hubbard Woods has been on Metra’s long-term capital funding and repair plans since at least 2014, Pierce told Winnetka trustees in June. In 2015, design plans for depot rehabilitation, platform shelter replacement, a new pedestrian bridge and new stairs and platform elevators was supposed to cost about $600,000, she said, with eventual construction costs projected at roughly $6.3 million.
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However, the project would have been paid for through a state bond program, which is on hold, Metra board member John Plante said in June.
In July, Rintz said Metra officials told him they would also try to speed work on the larger renovation project by completing a request for a design proposal. After letting council members know this month about the stair and panel replacements, Rintz asked village staff to continue pressing Metra officials for action.
“The good news is that, at least for the winter, and for the foreseeable future, it’s safe and walkable,” Rintz said.
Thomas-Reile said design for the project “is about to get underway, but funding beyond the design phase has not yet been identified, so I can’t provide a timetable for the project.”
She said it will include repairs of another rusted staircase on the north end of the east platform, leading to Scott Avenue. That lies within the geographic boundary of Glencoe rather than Winnetka, she said earlier.
Twitter: @pioneer_kathy