Forest Park is a station on the Chicago Transit Authority's 'L' system, located in the village of Forest Park, Illinois and serving the Blue Line. Before the Congress Line was built, it served as terminal for the Garfield Line. It is the western terminus of the Forest Park branch. The station was known as Des Plaines until 1994. It is also referred to as the Forest Park Transit Center by Pace because it is a major terminal for Pace buses.[2] The station contains a 1,051-space Park and Ride lot which uses the "Pay and Display" system, in which fees are paid at the lot entrance. It is located south of the Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad tracks which curve to the north of the station towards Madison Street where
the line rechristens itself to the Canadian National Railway's Waukesha Subdivision.
History
Forest Park destination sign
Forest Park opened in 1902, as a local interurban station on the Aurora Elgin and Chicago Railway. On March 11, 1905, the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad extended its Garfield Park rapid transit service west over the tracks of the Aurora Elgin and Chicago. An amusement park was located in this lot for 14 years (1908-1922) when an enormous fire incinerated parts of it, causing it to be shut down permanently. At this time Forest Park became the western terminal for the 'L' while continuing to serve as an interurban station. In 1958, the Congress Branch opened in the median of the Eisenhower Expressway, the Blue Line was rerouted and connected to the Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway Station LaSalle making Forest Park, the southern terminus of the Blue Line. Forest Park, however, is one of the few stations in the Congress Branch line that is not in the median of the Eisenhower Expressway, and is 350 meters (1,148 ft 4 in) north of it. In 1966, the park-and-ride lot with 1,051 spaces was opened and a new station was built and completed in December 1982 along with the Transit Center that provides connection to many bus lines.
On August 23, 2006, a new pedestrian bridge was lifted into place over the Des Plaines River between Maywood and Forest Park. The bridge and new approaches permit a direct crossing over the Des Plaines River, allowing the main stem of the Illinois Prairie Path to terminate further east, at the Forest Park station. The bridge and approaches opened in late October 2006, after lighting and emergency call boxes were installed.[3]
On December 16, 2012, the CTA discontinued the 17 Westchester route, leaving only Pace buses to serve Forest Park.[4]
The station is open 24 hours a day/7 days a week and 1,175,588 passengers used the station in 2011.
Service between Forest Park and Austin was temporarily suspended on September 2, 2024, while police investigated the shooting of four people sleeping in two cars of a Forest Park-bound Blue Line train shortly before 5:30 AM CDT. Three were pronounced dead at the scene, a fourth died in the hospital later. A suspect was later arrested by Chicago Police at a Pink Line station in Chicago approximately 90 minutes later.[5][6]
All stations were flag stops unless bolded. Stations in italics only discharged passengers eastbound, and only boarded passengers westbound; stations marked with § had the same service pattern as italicized stations between 1926 and 1951. Stations marked with * did not offer CA&E service between 1926 and 1951.
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