May 19--The Yellow Line will remain closed for at least the next several days after an embankment gave way late Sunday, shuttering the line that connects Chicago to Skokie, CTA officials said Monday afternoon.
The embankment gave way under a stretch of the track because of a Metropolitan Water Reclamation District construction project.
"The MWRD is sharing information with us on repairs that will help determine a more accurate timeline for service restoration," read the afternoon release.
Shuttle buses will continue to run from the two Yellow Line stops in Skokie to its terminus at the Howard Avenue stop in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood, where commuters transfer to the Purple and Red Lines.
The CTA also encouraged riders to consider the 97 Skokie bus, which stops near all three Yellow Line stations.
McCormick Boulevard from Oakton to Howard Streets was closed Monday morning, Skokie officials said in a news release. It was reopened in the early afternoon, according to a release from the Skokie Police Department.
The problem was discovered around 10:15 p.m. Sunday, according to CTA spokeswoman Tammy Chase.
An embankment that carries trains along McCormick between Howard and Oakton streets became unstable during a Metropolitan Water Reclamation District construction project, Chase said.
The earth moved on the CTA viaduct across McCormick during the construction of the disinfection project at the O'Brien plant, according to Allison Fore, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District project.
The plant removes pollutants from wastewater, according to the MWRD website. One of seven within the boundaries of the district, it serves 1.3 million people in the northern Cook County suburbs and in Chicago north of Fullerton Avenue.
"The exact cause is unknown and is being investigated," Fore wrote in an email. "The district is working with its contractor and CTA to resolve any issues as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience this incident has caused."
While officials said they were trying to make the track safe Monday morning, Skokie commuters scrambled to figure out how to make it to work and school in downtown Chicago.
Marinara Tamayao, a Skokie resident and sophomore at DePaul University, said while waiting for a shuttle at a downtown Skokie stop Monday that she understands that this "kind of stuff happens." Still, she said, it's inconvenient.
"The worst part about this is I'm losing class time and it's close to finals," Tamayao said.
When she received a message from her son that the train was down, Deneise Papillon said she raced to downtown Skokie to give him a ride to DePaul.
"He's going to be late for classes and that's not good," Papillon said. "But what can you do? I'm just glad he's on a shuttle bus now."
Andrew Ramos, of Morton Grove, said he had to call the downtown law firm where he works to tell them he would be late for a morning meeting.
"Not a lot you can do," Ramos said from the Yellow Line shuttle at Dempster where he was waiting Monday. "I don't think we can file a lawsuit."
Randy Miles, owner of Village Inn Pizzeria in downtown Skokie, said that the disruption will also affect his employees who get to the center of town on the Yellow Line and those who use it to go to Cubs games.
"It's very crowded," Miles said of the line.
Last year the Yellow Line celebrated its 50th anniversary. The line starts in a commercial area at Dempster Street and Skokie Boulevard and stops in downtown Skokie before it moves east to Howard. The downtown station at Oakton opened in 2012 next to the Illinois Science and Technology Park, a 24-acre research campus.
The Yellow Line has the smallest ridership of CTA's eight lines, according to online data. Last year, 986,000 passengers entered Yellow Line stations. During weekdays, 2,800 use the Yellow Line, on average.
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