CTA Red Line Extension breaks ground after judge made Trump administration release $2 billion in funding

The Chicago Transit Authority broke ground on Friday to extend the Red Line, after decades of promises to stretch the CTA's busiest rail line further south, and concerns that the federal government could cut off vital funding for the project.

The long-anticipated project was in limbo after the Trump Administration last year froze approximately $2 billion in funding for the CTA's Red Line Extension and Red & Purple Line Modernization projects, citing concerns of discriminatory race-based contracting.

CTA officials had to sue the Trump Administration to secure funding for this extension, which they are calling the largest capital improvement project in CTA history.

In March, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to temporarily unfreeze approximately $2 billion for the CTA's Red and Purple Line modernization projects.

The judge noted that when the CTA applied for federal funding for the Red Line project, federal regulations required them to set goals for participation by subcontractors owned by women and minorities. However, after the grants were awarded, the Trump administration set new rules eliminating such requirements, and the judge ruled it was improper to retroactively apply new rules to grants that had already been awarded.

"Obviously, [President Trump] had a very false premise of what he accused us of doing, but what we actually are doing is making good on a promise," Mayor Brandon Johnson said.

The mayor said the Red Line Extension is 16 years in the making, but while planning for the current project might have begun in 2010, promises to extend the Red Line south of 95th street date back decades. Former Mayor Richard J. Daley first promised to do so in 1969, after the 95th Street terminal opened.  

Virtually every mayor since also has vowed to deliver a southern extension of the Red Line, but it wasn't until 2022 that the City Council and then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot approved a funding plan to get it done by creating a new taxing district to provide up to $959 million in funding toward the cost of the $5.7 billion project.

The Red Line Extension project would extend the Red Line south from the 95th Street terminal to 130th Street, adding four new stations: 103rd Street and 111th Street near Eggleston Avenue, Michigan Avenue near 116th Street, and 130th Street.

The CTA will also build a new rail yard and related facilities near 120th Street.

"For too long, the Far South Side has not been provided the transit service it truly deserves, and today that ends," CTA Acting President Nora Leerhsen said.

A host of officials and investors took part in Friday's fanfare, including Bulls Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen, who's involved in one of the contractors hired for the project.

While many who live on the South Side welcomed Friday's groundbreaking, others were cautious due to the Red Line's stereotype.

Reginald Holmes has been working in the Roseland neighborhood for the past five years as a barber. He's hoping this project will be an economic boost for the community.

"It definitely would be good for this neighborhood," he said.

Marquetta Jordan, a Roseland native, said she has mixed emotions. She lives next door to some of the dozens of homes that were torn down last year to make way for the Red Line Extension.

"I just feel different. Like, sometimes it don't feel like home, because it's changing so much, but it's like, gotta move forward," she said.

She now lives next empty lots that are fenced off, some with signs that say "Ready, Set, Soon! The Red Line Extension is coming."

"The Red Line is infamous for having a lot of violence and crime, so it's just like, will it come all the way down here even more?" she said.

But others, like Holmes, were more optimistic about the future for the South Side.

"Nowadays, you'll see a lot of stuff boarded up, especially on Michigan Avenue. It never was always like this, but I'm starting to see things start to open back up, like the train. That's going to be one of the biggest things," he said.

Johnson said he expects construction of the Red Line Extension to be completed by 2030.