Feb. 17 -- On Monday, thousands of Brown Line commuters such as Felix Ramos will be forced to map out new routes to work when the Chicago Transit Authority temporarily closes two stations, shifting into high gear a massive project that will affect the daily life of thousands of people, including some who don't even take the train.

When the $530 million project is finished in December 2009, stations will be handicapped-accessible, and platforms will be extended so the CTA can run longer trains, increasing capacity by 33 percent on the popular rail route.

But getting there is tricky.

For the first time in more than a decade, stations will be shuttered for months at a time. Construction crews will be forced to block some alleys on some weekends near four street-level stations, creating parking crunches for people who won't be able to pull into their garages. Red, Purple and Brown Line trains will slow as track, signal and platform work proceeds. High school students will have to reconfigure their commutes, and dozens of store owners will be carefully monitoring their ledgers to gauge the impact of the station closures on business.

And then there are commuters like Ramos, who relies on the Brown Line to take him to his job at a downtown law firm. He worries about getting to work on time, so he'll leave home 15 minutes early Monday.

"There really isn't much choice," Ramos said as he waited for a train at the Kedzie station this week.

CTA officials say the payoff will be big. Brown Line stations will be able to accommodate eight-car trains rather than six, increasing capacity on a route that has seen ridership soar 83 percent since 1979, including 27 percent in the last eight years. The Brown Line has about 66,000 daily weekday riders, making it the third-busiest on the seven-line system.

But long-term shuttering of stations--the first since the Green Line shut down for two years in the 1990s--is a source of bitterness for those who had been promised the CTA would keep them open. That changed last year when the CTA board decided to shutter 15 stations temporarily to save $22 million after learning the overhaul project would cost more than expected. The faulty estimates have since been traced to staff errors, according to an agency's inspector general report.