East Chicago Station

Good gas prices

Easy, free parking. Watch out for those picking up and dropping off. They park anywhere so others drive around them, and don't always notice pedestrians.

This is the busiest South Shore Station. It is adequately clean and maintained. Sadly, it looks like the Number 2 Rolling Mill in a steel plant. It has one small, slow elevator and a three level, rather narrow staircase. There is no escalator, and when the elevator is down, no way for the handicapped to get to or off the platform.nnThey are building a new staircase and developing the platform to facilitate commuters. From the project pictures on display in the station, it is a tunnel dug in the side of the tollway hill. Commuters will enter and exit through a tunnel. No woman I talked to looks forward to using it; it looks like a sewer tunnel exit.nnThe staircase on the west side of Indianapolis Blvd which accommodated those who walked to the overflow lot or to EC has been closed for many years because of what it attracted, resulting in commuters who need to cross Indianapolis Blvd., to walk the wrong direction to get off the platform, and then backtrack and cross a busy street, which they generally do by dodging traffic. If that staircase was so problematic, one lacks confidence a dark tunnel will be safe. Would the NICTD powers that be like their wives, mothers, and daughters to be subjected to what will undoubtedly be a dark, dank steep staircase inside a narrow hill, with who knows what lurking inside?nnIt is very disconcerting and disappointing that some better answer could not have been found, and no more handicapped facilities added. Undoubtedly, they have their reasons for the design, but this new improvement is obviously not designed for the commuters comfort or safety, much less sense of aesthetics. Is this the best they could do?

The station is a clean and convenient stop for the South Shore commuter train system. It is our usual form of transportation to downtown Chicago for shopping, museum visits, dining or just enjoying one of the many other cultural events. Convenient and normally running on schedule. An update; new construction will enable passengers who park at the farther ends of the lot to access the platform easier. Will save a lot of walking.

Very quiet and not crowded