On January 26, when Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the CTA unveiled the route for the $2.3 billion extension of the Red Line from 95th Street to 130th Street, the big question was where the heck the CTA would get the money from. City officials said they planned to apply for more than $1 billion in federal grants for the project. Trouble is, White House infrastructure adviser DJ Gribbin says that Donald Trump’s forthcoming $200 billion infrastructure bill won’t include any new revenue and will cut existing transportation funding—specifically, Amtrak and public transit.
The agencies insist that they get along just fine. “We see a cooperative relationship,” said spokeswoman Susan Massel of the overseeing Regional Transit Authority, noting that the CTA, Metra, and Pace collaborated on the regional transit strategic plan the RTA approved in January. It calls for $30 billion in funding for transit infrastructure projects in the region, and Massel says all four agencies have committed to lobbying together for a steady annual revenue stream of $2 to $3 billion for capital investments.
CTA spokeswoman Catherine Hosinski and Metra spokesman Michael Gillis point to the new Loop Link bus rapid transit corridor and the new Union Station Transit Center, which make it easier to transfer from Metra trains to CTA buses, as one example of the agencies’ cooperation. And they maintain that the region already has an integrated fare payment system of sorts—the Ventra smartphone app lets CTA and Metra riders add value to their cards and permits Metra passengers to purchase tickets onboard without a surcharge.
John Greenfield edits the transportation news website Streetsblog Chicago.
