Oct. 12, 1923: Main Street traffic subway under the Illinois Central tracks called improbable
East-side business owners said a new station had cut downtown Champaign in two.
CHAMPAIGN - In October 1923, despite a campaign for a traffic subway under the Illinois Central tracks at Main Street, the Twin City Review reported it was improbable the railroad would do anything more.
Railroad officials considered the matter settled after the city council and some business owners agreed to a subway for pedestrians only, the labor weekly said, "ignoring the east side business section." The paper wrote that the company had built its new station directly in the path of Main Street, cutting the east side off from traffic.
The pedestrian subway was already finished, and enlarging it would take much more time and money, the paper said. It reported that most citizens who favored a traffic subway thought "a blunder has been made" in letting the plans go forward without connecting the east and west sides, and that there was less inclination to blame the railroad than others "who should have known" what was best for the city.
Source: Twin City Review (Champaign, Ill.), Oct. 12, 1923, page 1, via the Library of Congress.