This was discussed on chicagobus.org to no avail, and the webmaster of chicago-l doesn’t know, so I figured heck, I’ll ask here…
As many of us know, all the CTA train stops’ signs have the north/south and east/west coordinates from the Chicago street numbering system (and the Evanston numbering system on the Evanston Purple Line stops). For example, the Addsion Red Line stop’s sign tells you the coordinates are 3600N, 960W.
Now…the Rosemont Blue Line stop…when it was called “River Road,” the sign displayed the proper west coordinate – I think it was 9300 West. But when the stop was renamed “Rosemont,” the coordinate on the sign changed to 10500 West! If that coordinate were true, then that means that the station would be right at the end of an O’Hare runway!
So…why the weird coordinate number?? An e-mail to CTA got no response…