Bridgeport, Chinatown residents tell us what they think about the Amtrak rail yard development plans

October 16, 2026 Clara Wilson

In mid-August, Amtrak announced it would build a new maintenance facility in Bridgeport and Armour Square. Union Pacific already owns a dormant rail yard there between 33rd and 35th streets, just west of Rate Field.

Amtrak said 16 of its routes use maintenance facilities and staff based in Chicago. That work now happens largely in the South Loop, and White Sox minority owner Justin Ishbia announced last month he intends to use that site for a mixed-use development and possibly a new stadium for the team.

Chinatown and in Bridgeport residents have rallied against the plan. The rail yard there has been inactive since 2019, and industrial activity at the location largely has waned since the 1980s, they said. The issue has united people across racial backgrounds — which is notable given the area’s history of racial strife.

Bridgeport’s industrial history has left lasting impacts, including lead-contaminated soil. And large areas of Chinatown were rail yards until the mid-1980s, when community leaders bought land that was turned into parks and retail areas.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has given Amtrak a “categorical exclusion” from the environmental reviews that usually accompany federal construction projects. Community advocates have pushed back on these exclusions, which have become more common in recent years, saying the relaxed oversight poses a risk of abuse — and a neighborhood coalition said it worries about how much noise and pollution could come from the new maintenance facility, which would operate around the clock.

To go beyond the political drama of packed community meetings and City Council hearings, we headed into the neighborhood and asked people ranging from 21 years old to 85 what they think. Here’s what they had to say.

Black-and-white drawing of a man with light skin, short dark hair, and a short mustache and goatee. He is identified as Matt Malec, 32, a Bridgeport resident for five years and a third-generation Sox fan. Malec is quoted twice below the portrait. The first quote reads: “We’ve seen other sites like this: Chinatown Square, Ping Tom — those were all rail yards before. Palmisano Park was a quarry, Park No. 571 was a natural gas site.” The second quote reads: “We’ve had sites that were industrial previously. It doesn’t mean that they have to stay that way.”

A black-and-white drawing of a woman with light skin and long, wavy medium-dark hair, identified as Olivia Esquivel, 21, who is a Bridgeport resident for 4 years but grew up in nearby Brighton Park. She is quoted below the portrait as saying, “This whole situation has been very frustrating, especially with the framing that the opposition to this development as just being anti-train/NIMBY, when in reality, we’re all just concerned. I’ve visited Bridgeport my entire life. One of the reasons that we’ve moved here is because of the vibrant and diverse community that we have here, and [now there’s the] possibility of this development devastating this community.”

A black-and-white drawing of a woman with medium-to-dark skin and dark neck-length curly hair. She is wearing glasses, a face mask, a necklace and hoop earrings; she also has a cardigan over a crew-neck top. She is identified as Maya Jones, 30, a Bridgeport resident for five years. She is quoted twice below the portrait. The first quote reads: “I do environmental justice work in McKinley Park, and we talk about Bridgeport being one of the less affected Southwest Side neighborhoods.” The second quote reads: “I think for [Amtrak] to bring in this known industrial environmental hazard, then tell us it’s all fine … with no indication of the impact it has on people … just feels absolutely bonkers.”

A black-and-white drawing of an older woman with light skin and somewhat short light-colored hair. She is wearing a shirt with a buttoned collar and a puffy jacket over that. She is identified as Nancy Fong, 76, a Chinatown resident for 27 years. She is quoted twice below the portrait. The first quote reads: “If you add this 24/7 maintenance facility, it would be loud every day. And with the pollution … This shouldn’t be in a residential neighborhood.” The second quote reads: “It’s challenging. We’re a low-income neighborhood to begin with.”

A black-and-white drawing of a woman with light skin and long dark hair, identified as Maria LaGiglio, 43, born and raised in Bridgeport and living about 150 feet from the site; almost all of her family lives within 1 mile of it. She is quoted below the portrait as saying, “The crane usage that happened at this site largely dried up in the 1980s. When we would drive by here [then], that wasn’t the activity that was going on. It was at the northern end, near Archer, if there were to be any. It really isn’t right on top of homes. Then, in 2019, [Union Pacific] shuttered operations and said that there would be no more container activity here. Amtrak’s comparison to peak historical freight activity does not establish what occurred beside the homes at 33rd and Canal.”

Black-and-white drawing of an older woman with light-to-medium skin and light hair that’s cut short. She’s wearing a hooded jacket over a V-necked top, and the hood is down. She is identified as Rui Qiong Wu, 85, a Chinatown resident. She is quoted below the portrait as saying, “This would affect us for a long time … Before, I used to think that, ‘Oh, good, [new developments] can bring people to our community, even if it can make our cost of living troublesome.’ But after I learned more about it, I realized there can actually be more negative impacts … We must prevent the construction of this Amtrak maintenance facility.”

Black-and-white drawing of a woman with light skin and shoulder-length medium-dark hair, identified as Allison Vazquez, 37, second-generation Bridgeport resident. Vazquez is quoted below the drawing as saying: “We’ve been working over probably the last 10 years to deindustrialize the area. Taking that into consideration, to have this kind of then pop up again in a residential area is a backslap to everything that we as a community have been working towards.”

A black-and-white drawing of a man with medium-light skin and dark hair in a crew cut, wearing glasses and identified as Jonathan Chen, 40, a Bridgeport resident for eight years; Chen’s wife, Wendy, is a second-generation Bridgeport resident. He is quoted below the portrait as saying, “Nothing that has been stated that really precludes [Amtrak] from staying where they are. They could build around their existing facilities. Sure, it’s gonna be difficult, but they are doing that in all of their other maintenance facilities. Five are currently being constructed in Seattle, Philadelphia, Boston, D.C., and New York … We want Amtrak to be able to do good things. I do think they do need to modernize their operations, but their facility does not belong in a residential neighborhood — in any, not just in ours.”

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Bridgeport, Chinatown residents tell us what they think about the Amtrak rail yard development plans

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