NCBG first became involved in transit issues when the CTA cut services and raised fares to balance its 1992 budget.

Just as neighborhoods were beginning to see the fruits of their labors to get more neighborhood infrastructure improvements, CTA cut off bus and rail access to many struggling areas of the City. Workers, students, senior citizens, and businesses were clamoring to be connected to the City’s public transit system.

NCBG members began calling to ask what NCBG could do. Then, in February 1992, the CTA announced its plans to shut down the Lake Street branch of the CTA Green Line, which had fallen into disrepair from years of neglect. CTA argued that the century-old rail line was obsolete: after all, the West Side had bus service and the Forest Park Branch of the Blue Line, and thus, didn’t “need” the Lake Street L too.

The reaction? As you might imagine, industrial councils, block clubs, senior citizen groups, and community-based organizations raised an outcry of protest.

NCBG recognized immediately that the Lake Street L was a vital piece of public infrastructure that HAD to be saved.

With the help of West Side groups like the Interfaith Organizing Project, Bethel New Life, and the Industrial Council of Northwest Chicago, NCBG convened concerned transit riders and community stakeholders to fight back.

The result: A movement was launched to demand recognition of the importance of public transportation to the viability and economic revitalization of neighborhoods.

The early meetings gathered momentum. West suburban community and business leaders and public officials from Oak Park, River Forest and Forest Park joined the effort. South Siders, along the Englewood and Jackson Park branches of the CTA Green Line, united with NCBG’s West Side and west suburban allies. Together, the “Community Green Line Coalition” campaigned for the rehabilitation of the entire 22-mile-long Green Line – and won! After an intensive grassroots organizing effort by this historic alliance between the inner city and the suburbs, CTA agreed to invest in the rebuilding of the Green Line, and spent $420 million on its repair and modernization.

While NCBG’s commitment to monitor transit capital spending was forged during the heat of the Green Line battle-- and continues to this day--NCBG also learned that the entire rapid transit infrastructure of CTA and Metra (the commuter rail service) needed an enormous investment of public capital dollars to modernize and upgrade the quality of rail service to Chicago’s neighborhoods. NCBG was in the fight “for keeps.”

By the mid-1990s, NCBG became a major ally of and resource to community, business, and elected leaders calling for the renovation of other major CTA rail lines, the Cermak/Douglas branch of the Blue Line, and the Ravenswood “L”, CTA’s Brown Line. Today the Douglas L is undergoing reconstruction, and NCBG continues to monitor the capital plans and spending of CTA on major infrastructure projects.

Because of the Green Line fight, NCBG had also recognized the importance of public transit connections and facilities like rail stations as crucial assets to anchor communities and attract private reinvestment. NCBG became a vocal advocate for “transit oriented development.” In the wake of the renovation of the CTA Green Line, ridership increased, and community development organizations like Bethel New Life began to build housing and other community development projects in proximity to CTA lines and stations. In the mid- to late-1990s, NCBG also helped the Edgebrook, Roseland, and West Pullman communities convince Metra to upgrade their commuter stations in their Chicago neighborhoods, contributing to the economic vitality and residential quality of life of these areas..

By the late 1990s, it became apparent that public transportation has a growing constituency, with more and more people choosing to use public transit, even when their have the option of driving. These “discretionary” riders joined the ranks of low-income, aging, and non-car-owning (or “transit dependent”) riders, and began to seek information and help to address their complaints about their daily commutes.

By the end of the decade it became clear that a concerted effort would be needed to reform Chicago’s transit agencies and promote citizen empowerment in the decisions about allocating transit resources and services to the public. In late 1999, with input and help from a wide array of other organizations, NCBG launched a special program initiative, “The Campaign for Better Transit.”

Today, NCBG’s Campaign for Better Transit (“CBT”) is working with transit riders, community and small business leaders across the City to demand improved and expanded transit services, and greater accountability and openness in transportation decisions that affect the daily lives of Chicagoans in every neighborhood.

For more information about CBT, or to get involved in the Campaign, go to
www.bettertransit.com