Business
A Community Celebrates the CTA Red Line Extension Decades in the Making
Plans to extend the CTA Red Line to the Far South Side of Chicago are finally on track. The Red Line extension project broke ground last month, after decades of planning and months of federal funding uncertainty.
The project would add 5.5 miles of tracks and four new stations between the current end point at 95th Street and the future end point at 130th Street.
When it’s completed, the project will connect Roseland and Altgeld Gardens to the city’s existing network of 224 miles of train tracks. And the expanded train access is expected to cut travel time to the Loop, airports and neighborhoods on all sides of the city.
For Katanya Raby, vice president of planning at the Far South Community Development Corporation and chair of the CTA Citizens Advisory Board, the groundbreaking ceremony in April had the feeling of a family reunion for everyone involved in bringing the project to fruition.
“The energy, everyone in the community coming out, so much of our community leadership, … everyone in that space overjoyed by having this momentous occasion being celebrated,” Raby said.
A rendering of the CTA Red Line extension project. (Courtesy of the CTA)
Chicagoans have talked about extending the Red Line for decades. According to Ald. Anthony Beale (9th Ward), upward pressure from citizens to alderpeople and then on to the mayor at the time ultimately got the project onto the federal agenda.
“We approached (Mayor Richard M. Daley) and said, ‘Look, your father promised us this. And so we need you,’” Beale said, referencing former Mayor Richard J. Daley’s remarks at the 1969 opening of the 95th Street CTA train station.
The effort gained steam in 2004, when a ballot referendum showed strong community support for the project. Two years later, the CTA began planning for the extension.
TaNesheha Marshall, the CTA’s vice president of the Red Line extension project, said federal funding granted in January 2025 was the missing piece of the project.
Then in October of that same year, the Trump administration froze the funding, claiming the CTA’s goals around granting contracts to women- and minority-owned businesses were discriminatory. However, a judge unfroze the funding in March 2026, and the groundbreaking went forward.
A lot has changed during the planning process, including the estimated price tag. The expected cost rose from $3.6 billion to $5.7 billion. Marshall said earlier estimates predate the COVID-19 pandemic.
“After (the pandemic), everything increased,” Marshall said. “From labor to material to equipment, so we had to adjust.”
A rendering of the CTA Red Line extension project. (Courtesy of the CTA)
Digging and foundation work is starting now, with track-building to follow. Station construction is expected to begin in 2027 or 2028, with a goal of opening by 2030.
And while a lot of attention has focused on the greater access South Siders will have to the rest of the city, the extension also means that everyone else will be able to visit the Far South Side more easily.
According to Beale, investments in hotels, hospitals and the Pullman National Historical Park — along with the jobs brought by the Red Line extension construction — are already transforming the neighborhood.
“The Far South Side is on the move, and if you haven’t seen it, you need to pay attention,” Beale said.
Eunice Alpasan, Heather Cherone and Blair Paddock contributed to this report.
