South Branch of Red Line to Close for 5 Months in Spring of 2013

From CBS Chicago

In case you missed this story yesterday, the CTA will be closing down the South Branch of the red line for 5 months beginning in the spring of 2013.  This probably comes as a big shock for South residents.

   

The good news for most Sloopin residents is that the closure will start at Cermak/Chinatown - which means the Roosevelt stop will remain functional.  

The reason for the closure is financial and will drastically help speed up the timing of the project:

The decision to close the Red Line from the Cermak-Chinatown station to the 95th Street terminal was made to condense the reconstruction from four years of weekend work to five months total, said CTA spokeswoman Molly Sullivan.

She acknowledged it will cause inconvenience to riders, but that the benefits of the project will come on line sooner. “Dragging out the project would be delaying faster service by more than three years,’’ Sullivan said, adding that slow zones are in effect on 40 percent of the Dan Ryan branch of the Red Line. 

Completing the work in five months by shutting down the entire south branch, instead of four years of operating the line on weekdays only, will also save $75 million, Sullivan said.

While we understand that this is going to be painful for many, we always prefer to quickly pull off the band-aide instead of doing it slowly.  This is easy for us to say as it's not really affecting the broader neighborhood.

Regardless, we imagine some of the Sloopin readers who are on the South end of the neighborhood might feel different.

So what do you think?  A good decision or should they have dragged it out?