211th Street  Metra stop in line for new name

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Updated: February 27, 2012 9:50AM

The Metra station at 211th Street will be named the Park Forest/Lincoln Highway stop.

The name for the station that is half in Olympia Fields and half in Park Forest received Olympia Fields Village Board approval on Monday.

The lone objector to the new name, Trustee Susan Ormsby, said, “I have all kinds of objections. That (station) is a gateway (to Olympia Fields).”

However, Trustee Willis Pennington, who sits on the Metra board, said Olympia Fields has its name on a station at 203rd Street, and asking for a second station would cause “blowback.”

Trustee Kelvin Oliver said since Olympia Fields and Park Forest are in a partnership to redevelop the area around the station, “as neighbors, it only makes sense to advocate on their behalf that this be called Park Forest.”

Changing the name from 211th Street to Lincoln Highway is a logical switch, as all the road signs read Lincoln Highway, Trustee Bob Waite said.

Another change at the station is the parking, which will not revert back to monthly passes once the construction is finished, village administrator David Mekarski said.

Metra has been encouraging villages to switch to daily parking passes to ensure the spots are filled as often as possible, he said.

Olympia Fields will stop collecting the fees from the daily fare boxes. Instead, a Chicago South Suburban Mass Transit District employee will collect the coins and notify the village if any of the parkers has not paid. The Olympia Fields community service officer then will write up the tickets, and Olympia Fields will receive the proceeds from any ticket revenue, he said.