Chicago City Council approves TIF district to support CTA Red, Purple Line projects

Written by Kyra Senese, Managing Editor
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The Chicago City Council has approved the use of a tax-increment financing (TIF) district to allocate funding needed for the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) Red and Purple Modernization Program (RPM).  

 

The TIF funds are expected to bring in $622 million and will support the first phase of the project to rebuild the transit authority’s Red and Purple lines.

“This project has been several years in the making, and I am thrilled to be moving forward with the plans to modernize the Red and Purple lines,” said Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “This type of investment in transit is an investment in Chicago’s residents and neighborhoods, connecting them to jobs, education and more. And I want to commend everyone who worked throughout this process to make this project a reality.”

The RPM will reconstruct the CTA’s Red Line, its busiest rail line, which officials say is nearly a century old.

“The tracks, structures and stations are well past their useful lifespan, and can no longer handle additional trains to meet the increasing demands of growing ridership, which is up 40 percent during the rush hours over the last five years,” representatives said.

The city and the CTA are also pursuing $1.1 billion in federal grant funding—more than half the project cost—to move the project forward. The transit authority is required to supply local matching funds in order to secure the federal funding, which the transit TIF is intended to help mitigate. The remaining local funds needed are expected to come from other CTA resources such as bonds.

Phase One of the RPM project is estimated to cost $2.1 billion and will reconstruct four stations and more than a mile of tracks and structures between the Lawrence and Bryn Mawr stations. The project plan also entails building a Red-Purple bypass to enhance reliability along the entire Red Line route.

“[The] approval is great news for CTA customers, as we move forward with one of the biggest modernization projects in CTA history,” said CTA President Dorval R. Carter, Jr. “This investment will ensure that the Red Line continues to serve as the backbone of the CTA rail system.”

Representatives added that bi-partisan legislation passed by the Illinois General Assembly in June 2016 authorized the formation of a transit-exclusive TIF intended specifically for the RPM project.

The RPM project is part of Mayor Emanuel’s “Red Ahead” program, a series of projects being completed to improve the CTA’s Red Line, which serves more than 75 million riders per year.

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