CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - A major federal funding agreement has been signed by local and federal officials for the construction of the Red Line extension to 130th Street.
Under the agreement, the federal government is promising to come through with $1.973 billion to help extend the CTA Red Line from 95th Street to 130th Street.
Included in the 5.5 mile extension would be new, accessible transit stations on 103rd Street., 111th Street., Michigan Avenue and 130th Street.
It’s no coincidence the signing of the federal funding agreement comes 10 days before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. The agreement is not the actual money itself, it’s the promise Congress will allocate the money in the coming years.
With Trump being sworn in on Jan. 20, U.S. Illinois Congressman Mike Quigley said “the road gets a helluva lot rockier the next four years” to get money set aside.
U.S. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin put it a little differently.
“You never know about change. Might be good. Maybe it won’t. Who knows? You just don’t know. That’s why we’re meeting today. We want to make sure that, whatever the change may be, the Red Line will finally be finished to 130th Street,” Durbin said.
CTA President Dorval Carter said that no matter who is in the White House there’s never been a time when the federal government did not abide by a funding agreement like the one just signed today.
United States Illinois Congresswoman Robin Kelly called today “a monumental step forward.”
“This federal funding will be green-lighted and construction will start in the next year,” she said.
United States Illinois Congressman Jonathan Jackson spoke of the impact of not having the extension over the past 50 years that politicians have been promising it to South Side residents.
“This neighborhood, for too long, has been economically asphyxiated. We have been cut-off from the life-blood, lifeline of Chicago’s vitality. This seeks to remedy a wrong from a long time ago,” Jackson said.
The project is expected to generate thousands of jobs and be finished in 2030.
The acting director of the Federal Transit Administration, Veronica Vanterpool, joined Mayor Brandon Johnson, CTA President Dorval Carter, CTA Board President Lester Barkley, plus U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, local members of Congress and Chicago alders at the signing of the federal funding promise at The House of Hope Church in the Pullman neighborhood.
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