Feds make $2B commitment to CTA Red Line extension

The CTA is in line to receive a nearly $2 billion federal grant — the largest in its history — to cover half the cost of the 5.6-mile Red Line extension to provide mass transit service to the only part of Chicago without it.

After 50 years of political promises and baby steps, the promise former Mayor Richard J. Daley made when he opened the 95^th Street station in 1969 is finally nearing the finish line.

The $3.7 billion Red Line extension has “advanced to the final phase” of the painstaking, federal funding process. The feds are making a $2 billion commitment to cover half the cost and authorizing CTA to advance to the engineering stage, which CTA President Dorval Carter Jr. called the “final step ... in order to begin construction.”

The CTA hopes to award an engineering and construction contract and begin preliminary work before the end of this year, then reach the final step — a full-funding grant agreement with the feds. That would pave the way for construction of the extension and four stations to begin in 2025.

“You have heard us talk about this project for decades, but I’m here to tell you the project is now happening,” Carter told a news conference at the Red Line Extension Community Outreach Center, 401 W. 111^th St.

The Red Line extension includes new stations at 103rd; 111th Street near Eggleston Avenue; along Michigan Avenue near 116th Street; and the new terminus at 130th Street near Altgeld Gardens.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Far South Side Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) was 2 years old when Daley cut the ribbon on a 95^th Street station and promised the extension needed to relieve Far South Side residents from what Federal Transit Administration chief Nuria Fernandez called “mega-commutes” as long as 90 minutes one way.

“This was a 50-year-old promise to our community. It just goes to show how long it has taken us to get to this point,” Beale said.

“We talk about the jobs. We talk about connecting the entire city — from 130^th to downtown. Fifty years, we have had that disconnection. But that disconnection is almost gonna be eliminated so we can connect resident on the Far South Side to the good-paying jobs, so they can get downtown in less than 30 minutes to get to their job,” he said.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said if not for President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, the $2 billion federal grant would not be possible.

“Every once in a while, we get a president with the leadership skills and a Congress [that] is ready to move. And we get something done that will change the face of Chicago and the futures of hundreds of thousands of people,” Durbin said.

The local match required to qualify for the historic federal grant would not have been possible if Chicago hadn’t found the money. Mayor Lori Lightfoot made it happen by persuading the City Council to create a new transit tax increment financing district to bankroll $959 million, or 26% of the cost.

The new TIF district is controversial because it isn’t in the area where the money will be spent.

Beale has called it a “rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul” approach. The district covers a half-mile on either side of the Red Line between Madison Street and Pershing Road.

As a result, five wards nowhere near the Far South Side — the 3rd, 4th, 11th, 25th and 42nd — will bear the burden even though their residents are unlikely to benefit from the new service. That’s why Mayor Brandon Johnson’s handpicked Finance Committee Chair Pat Dowell (3rd) opposed the financing plan and cast the lone “no” vote.

Dowell was all for the extension, calling it desperately needed. But she wanted the entire city to contribute instead of just her ward and four others.

“When you take TIF money from one neighborhood and spend it in another, it really feels like theft. It feels lowdown and dirty,” Dowell told Carter during a committee hearing last year.

Johnson now stands to benefit from Lightfoot’s bold move by breaking ground on the long-awaited extension and maybe even seeing it through to completion.

During Friday’s news conference, Johnson didn’t mention the pivotal role that his predecessor played.

He simply called it “a great day for the South Side of Chicago and for the entire city” he now leads.

“We are now significantly closer to being able to provide a point of connection that’s been missing on the South Side for half a century,” Johnson said.

“For too long, our transportation system has denied residents beyond 95th Street. For too long, South Side residents have been hindered by barriers to transportation. But that’s changing today. Today, we’re beginning to right the historic wrongs,” he said.

Sun-Times file