By: Celia Martinez
A groundbreaking ceremony took place Tuesday morning as Illinois State Senator Martin Sandoval (D-12) and Cicero Town President Larry Dominick came together to announce the $4.5 million rehabilitation project of the Cicero Metra station. “Its here, it’s going to happen, it’s a reality,” said Senator Sandoval about the long awaited construction of the station.
Joining Dominick and Sandoval were Metra Acting Chairman Larry Huggins, Executive Director Alex Clifford and State Representative Lisa Hernandez among others. “I’m very fortunate to have a great town board that supports me and Cicero is very fortunate to have the greatest senator a town can have,” said President Dominick. “He has done so much to help our town.”
Together they announced the ambitious plan to completely rehab the entire station adding two new seven-car platforms with tactile warming strips, a new warming house on the outbound side, a reconstructed ramp to comply with ADA requirements and a new parking lot along with other improvements.
“It’s been a long time coming,” said Dominick about the re-construction of the station.
Located on 25th Place and Cicero, the station was last rebuilt in the 1970’s and is facing serious deterioration throughout: from the concrete stairways to the ramps and tunnels and the platform canopies. The station is not only an eyesore, but it is also dangerous.
“It’s one of the oldest and probably most abandoned Metra Stations in the whole corridor,” said Sandoval, “and President Dominick for years has been advocating the state of Illinois pay more attention to.”
According to Dominick, the rehabilitation of the Cicero Metra station had been in the works since 2005, soon after being elected as town president, and it is just now a possibility because no one in had been able to pass a capital bill in Springfield before. For the last few years, Sandoval said he worked continuously with the chairman of transportation and speaker of the house and slowly but surely, Dominick and Sandoval together found a way to get the state of Illinois, Metra and the federal government to bring $4.5 million dollars on this project that is expected to be completed within 18 months.
