When Chicago Tribune transportation reporter Jon Hilkevitch was
13 years old, he and his grandmother took a ride on the opening
day of what is now the Dan Ryan branch of the CTA Red Line -- a
branch soon to face massive reconstruction.  In the Tribune
newsroom on Thursday, Jon had a button from the line's opening
day in his pocket, and the Tribune was preparing to run a story
and graphic about the ambitious project to rebuild the Red Line
through the South Side.  There's nothing about that button in
Jon's pocket that is new -- what used to be the "CTA Dan Ryan
Line" on Chicago’s South Side hasn't been new since it opened on
Sept. 28, 1969. The fare then was 40 cents.  Background on the
project   Later to be called the Red Line Dan Ryan branch, the
line was built, starting in 1967, in the median of what
previously was the South Expressway, which later was renamed to
honor Dan Ryan, president of the Cook County Board who died a
year before the expressway opened in 1961.  Now, almost 44 years
later, the railroad