CTA gearing up for Red Line Extension project

A conceptual rendering of the 103rd Street station. Provided by CTA.
A conceptual rendering of the 103rd Street station. Provided by CTA.

CTA gearing up for Red Line Extension project

By Tia Carol Jones

The Chicago Transit Authority has identified where it will build the Red Line Extension. The 5.6- mile extension will start at 95th Street to 130th Street in Altgeld Gardens and include four new Red Line stations. The new stations will be located at 103rd Street, 111th, Michigan at 116th Street and 130th Street.

Tammy Chase, the Director of Communications, Red and Purple Modernization and Red Line Extension at Chicago Transit Authority, said the plan is to break ground in late 2025. To prepare for that, a contract will be awarded to a team that will design and build the project. CTA also has to obtain the full funding grant agreement, which is the nearly $2 billion funding from the federal government.

Advance construction work is starting in late summer or early fall of this year, with the demolition of properties that are in the area of the new tracks and stations, as well as relocating poles where the new tracks will be built. CTA is coordinating with ComEd, People’s Gas, telecommunications and Department of Water Management to ensure utilities and materials are relocate so CTA is ready to start construction in 2025.

“The Red Line Extension Project is coming to the Far South Side of Chicago, and this summer we will take a huge leap forward by starting the groundwork necessary to build new Red Line tracks and stations,” CTA President Dorval R. Carter, Jr, said in a press release. “As a native South Sider, I am proud to deliver on CTA’s promise to transit customers and local residents of new affordable, convenient and reliable Red Line service, as well as bring a wealth of job and training opportunities to residents.”

CTA recently hosted a series of community meetings in June in the 9th, 10th and 21st Wards. Chase said the meetings were well attended and community members are excited to see the Red Line Extension Project is actually going to happen.

“A lot of people have been coming to the meetings asking when, when, when,” Chase said. “They’ve been hearing this for a long time.”

Chase said CTA has been keeping the public informed on its progress in regards to the Red Line Extension Project. People are also concerned about how quickly the extension and stations will be built and when they will be able to take the trains.

CTA started studying the Red Line Extension Project more than a decade ago. Chase said it takes time to do the environmental study on such a large geographical area. Those studies were finalized a few years ago.  Once CTA figured out where the project will be built, more community outreach had to be done.

“These processes are long, but they’re very thorough,” she said. “They ensure the federal government and other sources of funding that this project is buildable, it’s needed and it’s real.”

Chase said that residents who live in the area where the Red Line will be extended, it will save them up to 30 minutes one way from 130th to Downtown. She added, not only is it an improvement to the quality of life because the residents will have access to one ride, versus having to take a bus to 95th street to get on the Red Line.

“This is a gamechanger to people on the Far South Side, just in terms of being able to get to the rest of the city more quickly and more efficiently,” Chase said.

CTA is also working with the City of Chicago on a plan to identify the types of development that could happen once the stations are built. Chase said that when new stations or significantly improved stations are built, development follows.

“We don’t want to just build transit, we want to build transit for people who live and work in the area, but we also want to help the community see economic development and be a partner in that,” she said.

Once the groundbreaking takes place in late 2025, the anticipated opening of the new stations is late 2029.

Latest Stories

Latest Podcast

Peggy Riggins