A Chicago Transit Authority official indicated June 15 that the agency is taking a fresh look at an earlier study on expanding the Yellow Line train route and exploring future transit options for the line.
In a presentation on current Yellow Line operations Monday, Molly Poppe, CTA chief planning and innovation officer, told Skokie trustees at their Village Board meeting that CTA leadership has a slew of “complex considerations that come in” when looking at any type of rail extension.
Poppe also acknowledged that Yellow Line ridership is down by almost half from pre-pandemic levels.
She elaborated on the prospect of expansion, saying, “If there’s high density residential, it’s a great place for an extension. If there’s also a lot of vacant land or underutilized property that we can develop, it’s also a great place for an extension.
“As we are looking at the Yellow Line, or any line, for example, NITA (Northern Illinois Transit Authority, which is replacing the RTA) is unlocking so much money for us, and so much opportunity for us to think about how we can evolve the transit service.”
The Yellow Line currently operates out of three stations: Howard Street (7600 north) on the Chicago-Evanston border, Oakton-Skokie (8000 north) in Skokie and Dempster-Skokie (8800 north) in Skokie.
In reference to a prior feasibility study conducted by the village on a potential extension of the Yellow Line to the “vicinity of Old Orchard Road” in 2003, Poppe said officials are currently “dusting that off” to better understand the abandoned proposal and what “challenges that proposal may face today.”
Extending the train line northward to Golf Road or Old Orchard Road could allow commuters to travel to the thriving Westfield Old Orchard Shopping Center, as well as adjacent shopping, Niles North High School and the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts.
Skokie Mayor Ann Tennes previously told Pioneer Press that plan was largely rejected by community members because of the proposed location to stop in the parking lot of Niles North High School.
The CTA’s website lists the Old Orchard extension as not currently included in its list of “fiscally constrained projects” in CMAP’s Go To 2040 Comprehensive Regional Plan and that the proposal is no longer being studied.
“I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that rail extensions take years; sometimes they take decades,” Poppe added, citing the $5.75 billion rail extension to the CTA Red Line that kicked off in April.
The four-station extension will expand the Red Line south from its current terminus at 95th Street to 130th Street. The project has been in the works for more than 50 years, but has received ongoing and widespread criticism for its hefty price tag.
Given the length and cost of embarking on a construction project of this magnitude, Poppe said CTA officials are also considering building up bus services in the area and “looking at infill stations” as other solutions to broader transportation access in Skokie.
“We’re working with Metra and Cook County on an infill station study, looking across our network of where we see gaps in our service, where we see [the] need for an infill station.”
But “there’s a lot of federal input and federal work that does go into that,” she added.
In a follow-up request for comment on the potential for a Yellow Line extension, CTA Acting Vice President of Communications Catherine Hosinski told Pioneer Press that “rail extensions and the significant investment these types of projects require will be analyzed and planned in partnership with the Northern Illinois Transit Authority (NITA).”
“CTA is reviewing the old extension plans and prior infill station plans to understand why those projects didn’t move forward,” Hosinski said, in addition to the “potential challenges and benefits of these projects for the region.”
Mayor Tennes first floated talks of a Yellow Line extension in May, during her State of the Village address at the Skokie Chamber of Commerce’s 101-year anniversary celebration.
Though she noted the Village had begun “very preliminary conversations with the governor’s office and community partners about the possibility of extending the CTA Yellow Line,” also known as the “Skokie Swift,” a project of this nature would require “significant” funding from outside partners.
“These projects take years, if not decades, to bring to fruition, and they cost millions and millions of dollars,” Tennes said.
“Village leadership is committed to making sure that it’s done, if and when it happens…that it is done in a way that is acceptable to the community.”
A line extension may also pave the way to increasing Yellow Line ridership, which, Poppe said at the June 15 meeting, has continued to lag behind pre-pandemic levels.
According to data Poppe shared in her presentation, Yellow Line annual ridership currently rests at about 53% of the ridership levels recorded in 2019.
“The Yellow Line does do about 442,000 rides every year, that’s in 2025. When you compare it to 2019, we were doing about 832,000 rides,” Poppe said.
“As we continue to look at investments in Skokie and investments on the Yellow Line, we want to understand how we can improve those service levels in order to drive more ridership.”
Skokie’s bus ridership has continued to increase since the pandemic, Poppe added, currently sitting at 68% of 2019 ridership levels. Network-wide bus ridership is back up to 80% of 2019 levels in 2026, according to CTA data.
Three primary CTA bus routes operate in the area: #54A North Cicero/Skokie Blvd, #97 Skokie and #201 Central Ridge, along with additional Pace suburban bus routes.
Tennes added during the June 15 Board discussion that transit and transportation issues come up frequently in Village surveys as being “very important” to the community and its priorities.
“CTA’s presence in Skokie helps us with our sustainability initiatives and there’s a lot of benefits to the community, so we’re grateful,” she said.
