I've got this.. dissonance to share with you.  The city recently agreed to spend a quarter million dollars for an engineering study to determine the feasibility of building an Evanston stop on the yellow line.  Now at first blush I'll admit this seems pretty straightforward; after all when did general contractors ever come cheaply?  And they're federal funds for the most part, all but fifty grand put up by the city.  So for fifty thousand bucks the city will have Parsons and Brinkerhoff, the same guys currently doing work rebuilding the World Trade Centers estimate the cost of building another train station.  The Evanston Roundtable saw it as a black and white issue; so did eighth ward alderman Ann Rainey.  Even Coleen the other day skipped over my confusion to the main question.  Where do we put the new station: Ridge, Asbury, or Dodge?

This is a trick question.  Evanston should have stops at all three locations along the line.

How then, from this perspective do you explain spending even fifty thousand taxpayer dollars to locate just one station?  After all each location once had its own station. Stilled by the Great Depression, retarded in their use by the quick and convenient automobile, the CTA closed each station in the 1940's and '50's in a bid to recreate the line as a shuttle service coined "The Skokie Swift."  The CTA has a history of the yellow line, replete with pictures of the stations at  http://www.chicago-l.org/operations/lines/yellow.html.

You might consider the changing times as need for a fresh approach to station building, one that warrants the intrusion of a New York engineering firm into the CTA's business.  After all it's hard to imagine building a stop like this on Asbury in 2010; where would you put the trees?

Had the CTA little experience in rebuilding old train stations I would consider it settled.  But the CTA recently rebuilt the Belmont transfer station, employing the respectable midwestern firm of F.H. Paschen to do the job.  And while Early Penitentiary Style isn't my idea of a commuter-friendly train station, steel, concrete and rebar should last until our great grandkids have had enough of it.  And that's just it; the CTA has simply rebuilt Belmont, but in fact is working on the entire Brown Line all the way to Kimball.  According the Chicago Reader's Ben Joravsky they're doing a pretty bad job of it too (see his recent "Arrogance on Wheels").  But if Ben Joravsky (and many community leaders in Chicago) can imagine a more intelligent, budget-friendly approach to rebuilding a whole line, Evanston can surely figure out where to put one station, right?

Right?

Or have we simply reverted to spending taxpayer dollars on consultants to organize neighbors in the eighth ward because we cannot decide on our own where best to locate a single station?  No, I haven't the stomach for such cynicism, and besides the Citizens for a Greener Evanston (www.greenerevanston.org) showed not simply can we organize to plan for city wide action to fight climate change, we can organize to act on it too.  And yes that includes Ann Rainey.

Being deeply committed to environmental matters I applaud any effort to reduce traffic congestion and our reliance on foreign owned oil distribution companies that shall remain nameless (Johnny Miller, Joe Barton - go apologize!).  Indeed the federal dollars for this project stem from the Federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program, grandchild to ISTEA - the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act; born during the hopeful years of Clinton's first term.  But two hundred and twenty thousand dollars to tell us if we can build one train station where one once stood seems kind of stiff, even to a tree hugger like me.

Now do you feel the dissonance?  Heck I could settle for the opportunity to rake Rainey over the coals for political expediency, but something more important is at stake than opining our lost ability to organize as a community.  East-west traffic in Evanston during rush hour, well, it sucks.  Just visit Google Maps and go to traffic; bright red slashes across Dempster, Main and Oakton practically from the Edens to the Canal.  Now visit the neighborhoods where once the Yellow Line stations stood - preferrably using their erstwhile replacement the CTA 97 bus, or just ride your bicycle.  Asbury and Ridge are now thick with multi-unit dwellings, block after block of five story apartment buildings.  Even the modest ranch homes along East Prairie - Crawford or Kostner in Skokie would make someone from Barrington shudder with claustrophobia.  Do you see the fine retail buildings not a block or two a way, still tenanted by the small businesses that continue making America great?  Or my favorite stop - Main Street in Skokie.  You could've fallen off the platform into a barber's chair!

Evanston and Skokie shouldn't wrangle over which neighborhood deserves a cherished train stop.  These neighborhoods have fruited, just as the operators of the Chicago Rapid Transit Company dreamt they would almost ninety years ago.  Contact Ann and Coleen - they're quite responsive.  Ask not where to build the train station, but where to build the first train station in what should prove a busy string of stations relieving congestion and improving the air quality of Skokie and Evanston alike.