Petition Circulating for Transit to Reach Obama's Presidential Library

In 1997, the city of Chicago elected to tear down a one-mile stretch of the CTA's Green Line rather than restore it. Some argued that the noise of the train and its look were making the neighborhood less attractive. Today much of the Southside is difficult to reach by public transit, especially CTA train, the Jackson Park area is struggling, has lost about 15 percent of its population since 2000 and, notably, is to be the home of a future Obama Presidential library it seems that those arguments were short-sighted.

Reuben Lillie, a musician and resident of the neighborhood, created a petition to try to undo what he sees as a 20-year-old mistake. "It argues that rebuilding the ‘L’ is essential for improving economic opportunities for residents and workers in Woodlawn, which struggles economically in spite of its proximity to prosperous Hyde Park and the University of Chicago," Michael Podgers reports in Streetsblog Chicago.