“Neighbors are growing fascinated by glimpses of transit history being uncovered bit by bit by crews digging up the street as part of the ongoing Lincoln Square construction project.

“Crews have been digging up the stretch of Lincoln Avenue between Leland and Eastwood avenues since last month and through their excavation revealed a set of metal tracks and wooden blocks previously been covered by layers of asphalt.

“‘Those tracks would have been installed in 1895, when electric streetcar service on Lincoln Avenue was extended north from Irving Park to Foster,’ said Graham Garfield, whose Chicago ‘L’ website documents the transit system’s history. “Though maybe not those specific rails, as they were likely replaced at some point as part of regular maintenance — though you never know.’

“The Lincoln Square tracks were a part of the Lincoln Avenue streetcar system, a precursor to the #11 Lincoln bus that served this section of the Lincoln Square neighborhood until 2017, according to Garfield and other historians.

“In the 1970s, a redesign of the area changed the traffic flow to follow Leland and made the 4700 block of Lincoln Avenue a one-way street. But the tracks would have extended north and continued along Lincoln Avenue through Lawrence and Western when the streetcars were still in use, Garfield said.

“Chicago was home to one of the word’s largest network of independent street railway systems. But by the 1950s, many had been abandoned or had their routes taken over by buses, according to the Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago.

“After the Great Depression, many of these private streetcar lines went out of business due to “overregulation by the city, corruption, and poor financial practices,” which prompted the State of Illinois to create the CTA in 1945 to buy the troubled transit companies and have the city operate them, according to records.

“’What’s exciting about urban archeology is that when something like this appears, you can stand on Lincoln Avenue looking south and just imagine where you would have had the electric lines running overhead,’ said Ian Tobin, vice president and director of community development for the Lincoln Square Ravenswood Chamber of Commerce. ‘You just imagine what the street scene would have looked like having these streetcars going in each direction.’” (Hernandez, Block Club Chicago, 7/11/25)

Read the full story at Block Club Chicago

• Lincoln Square Construction Unearths A Piece Of Pre-CTA History; Records show the tracks that have captured neighbors’ attention in recent weeks were part of a private transit service that predates the modern CTA, Alex V. Hernandez, Block Club Chicago, 7/11/25
• Back in Time: Lincoln Square Construction Project Excavates Remnant of Chicago’s Not-so-Distant Streetcar Past, Patty Wetli, WTTW Chicago, 7/9/25