Washington station (CTA Red Line)

Washington station in July 2001

Washington station in July 2004

The platform at Washington is part of a long continuous platform beneath State Street which runs from the Jackson station to the Lake station, making it the United States' longest continuous passenger platform. There are two mezzanines for the station, a northern at Randolph shared with the Lake station and a southern at Madison. There are stairs and escalators along State Street between Randolph and Madison to access both mezzanines. Additionally, Washington is equipped with an elevator to the Randolph mezzanine and was therefore accessible to people with disabilities. There is another elevator between that mezzanine and State Street, which is still in use for access to the Lake station.

There were two stairways on the platform to a lower level pedestrian tunnel that connected the Washington station to the Washington station in the Milwaukee–Dearborn subway, to allow transfers between the Red and Blue Lines. Lake station to the north of Washington and Washington were originally a single station, but they were separated on June 2, 1996 due to the renovation project of the Randolph-Washington mezzanine and Lake became an independent station on November 18, 1997 in order to better facilitate transfers between the Red Line subway and the elevated State/Lake station.

As part of the development of 108 North State Street (known as Block 37), The City of Chicago planned to construct a superstation located under the Block 37 mall. Washington station, and the lower level transfer tunnel to the Blue Line closed at midnight on October 23, 2006 for work related to the construction of this new station.[1]

Following cost overruns of $100 million, the superstation was indefinitely mothballed in June 2008.[2] The Block 37 superstation which had already been partially built, was left abandoned. The transfer tunnel and Washington-Madison mezzanine were both closed, and the station's platform reopened in February 2010. However the station remained closed and trains never resumed stopping at the station.

Washington station in 2022, 16 years after closure

When the CTA closed the Washington station, most of it was left intact. Originally, no work was performed to improve the Washington-Madison mezzanine, so that if a reopening was considered. The platform changed little except for the removal of its signage. However, the signs that say Escalator: Washington-Madison and To Madison or Monroe St, were not removed for unknown reasons. Until February 2015, the Washington: To Howard and Washington: To 95/Dan Ryan signs also remained on the walls of the southern half of the Lake station. The Washington station signs on the walls remained until late 2009 when the CTA removed the station signs from the walls to indicate it was no longer a station and Washington/State was removed from CTA rail maps in January 2009.[3] With the permanent closure of Washington, the turnstiles and fare vending machines were removed from the Washington-Madison mezzanine. As of June 2018, power has been cut to the Washington-Madison mezzanine.

Due to its location, the Washington station is still easily accessible for pedestrian access via the Lake and Monroe stations.

As of October 2019, the CTA does not consider the station to have closed permanently, but there are currently no plans to reopen the station.[4]