The Chicago Transit Authority on Friday officially began construction on a $5.75 billion rail extension that will bring CTA train service to the city’s Far South Side.
Discussed for more than 50 years, the project is set to extend the CTA’s Red Line from its current terminus at 95th Street to 130th Street and add four new train stations along the way. The project could bring much-needed development to Far South Side neighborhoods and “undo nearly 60 years of racial inequity in transit,” in the words of former CTA President Dorval Carter.
But it’s also been criticized for its massive price tag, with cost estimates that have ballooned from $3.6 billion just two years ago.
On Friday, officials cast the project as a long-overdue investment on the Far South Side.
“This project doesn’t just make history, it corrects it,” said acting CTA President Nora Leerhsen during remarks at the afternoon ceremony.
“In our city and in our nation, we are plagued by a long past of decisions that deepened our divisions and entrenched inequality,” Leerhsen said. “Until now, the map of CTA’s of train lines told that story.”
The project faced a major hurdle last fall, when President Donald Trump’s administration froze nearly $2 billion in federal grant money the CTA needs to complete the project, citing an investigation into racial preferences in contracting.
For months, with early site preparation work underway on the Far South Side, the transit agency was unable to access federal reimbursements to pay for that work.
A federal judge last month ordered the feds to temporarily unfreeze those dollars, a win officials celebrated on Friday.
“Today we are providing Chicago with an opportunity to demonstrate what it means to fight back against the Trump administration,” said Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
“This project was almost halted by the Trump administration because somehow he believes that investing in Black is a criminal act,” Johnson said. “But not in Chicago.”
Officials framed the start of the project — which will include the construction of new Red Line stations near 103rd Street, 111th Street, Michigan Avenue and 130th Street — as not just a moral victory but a practical one.
U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García mused that one day kids from Altgeld Gardens could take the Red Line to the Shedd Aquarium. “It’s about a working mom being able to scoop up her kids and hit the grocery store on the way home,” said Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate.
Friday’s groundbreaking ceremony, attended by members of the Illinois congressional delegation, state lawmakers, aldermen and CTA officials, took place near the planned future station at Michigan Avenue and 115th Street in Roseland.
Invitations for the event informed attendees that the location was served by a few CTA buses and the Metra Electric rail line — and that parking would be available on site.
By the end of 2030, Chicagoans will be able to take the Red Line there, if all goes as planned. The new Red Line stations are set to open that year, said CTA spokesperson Tammy Chase.
The agency’s grant agreement requires the CTA to complete the project by August 2031, according to court documents.
Major construction on the project began earlier this month, Chase said.
Upcoming construction work will include pouring concrete to create new track foundations, according to a news release from the mayor’s office. Station construction is expected to start next year.
The CTA locked down the nearly $2 billion in federal funds for the extension just before Trump took office in January 2025.
When asked at the time whether the Trump White House might claw the money back, former CTA head Carter said that, “historically, there’s never been a situation in which a full-funded grant agreement has been reneged on by the federal government.”
But in October, the Trump administration froze the Red Line dollars, citing an investigation into racial preferences in contracting. At the time, the feds published an interim final rule that removed the consideration of race and sex-based preferences for businesses seeking to be certified as “disadvantaged.”
In March, the CTA sued the Trump administration for the funds, arguing the feds were holding the dollars “hostage” in violation of federal law and the U.S. Constitution. The CTA argued that the U.S. Transportation Department had singled it out to retroactively apply the new contracting rules in an act of “political retaliation.”
Unless the funds were released imminently, the CTA warned, it would have to start winding the project down.
Federal Judge Thomas M. Durkin granted the CTA’s request for a temporary restraining order, requiring the feds to temporarily unfreeze the funds. Last week, the CTA filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in the case.
“If funding halts again, even temporarily, CTA will inevitably be left in the same position it was on March 20: with few options other than to begin demobilization to wind down construction,” the agency’s chief financial officer, Thomas McKone, wrote in a declaration submitted to the court.
A hearing is set for June 30.
