By: Mark Glennon*
A transit expert, Ed Zotti, couldn’t have said it better in a detailed, Crain’s op-ed in 2022:
For a Martian visiting Chicago, one of the more inexplicable aspects of the Red Line extension would surely be that there already is rail service to the Far South Side. It’s provided by the Metra Electric commuter line, with multiple stops in the neighborhood, plus additional stations and branches serving much of the South Side…. There’s already a railroad down here! We don’t have to build another one!
That’s just part of the case against the Chicago Transit Authority’s pending Red Line extension. Projected cost has soared to over a billion dollars per mile, but objections have all fallen on deaf ears thanks to the sheer bureaucratic momentum that adheres to the worst political boondoggles.
And now, the Biden Administration is attempting to make challenges to the project impossible by executing binding contracts that would thwart incoming cost cutters. Here are the details:
The Red Line extension would consist of 5.6 miles of new, above-ground rail track, four new passenger stations and an expanded rail yard, all on Chicago’s far Southside. The CTA hopes to start construction later this year and start operations in 2027.
It will be financed by a nearly $2 billion federal grant and, as reported Monday by the Chicago Tribune, the CTA now expects to issue $2.25 billion in bonds to help finance the project. Other funding will come from a special transit tax district approved by Chicago aldermen in 2022 that is expected to raise $950 million, plus funding from other state and federal sources.
In 2022, Zotti looked at comparable projects and concluded that the project would have been America’s third most expensive on a cost-per-ride basis. The cost estimate then was just $3.6 billion. Today, the cost estimate is 60% higher — $5.75 billion – over a billion per mile.
Zotti calculated the cost per ride at $1.8 million. “Let’s see any transit project on the planet top that,” he wrote.
But the 60% cost increase would take that today to $2.9 million per ride!
The case against the Red Line extension was repeated in David Roeder’s 2023 column. He’s a business reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, which is hardly a regular opponent of big government projects. “The CTA lists many reasons to support the project and wraps it in the mantle of racial justice,” Roeder wrote, “as the communities to benefit are mostly African American. But there’s an ‘emperor has no clothes’ aspect here. It becomes clear if you look at a map. There are five commuter rail lines in Chicago south of 95th that carry thousands of people every day.”
Roeder gave the details on the existing rail lines:
Two go right by Altgeld Gardens. One is the Metra Electric service to the southern suburbs, which passes the housing project to the west. The other is the South Shore line that connects Northwest Indiana to Chicago and passes Altgeld to the east. Granted, neither line has a station at 130th Street, but building one and adding service on existing tracks ought to be cheaper than the CTA’s plan. Two more rail routes are branches of the Rock Island service through either Washington Heights or Beverly on their way to the suburbs. The last line is a Metra Electric spur through Pullman that ends at Blue Island.
How could the project be proceeding in the face of such absurd cost and duplication of rail coverage?
Aside from claims that the Southside black neighborhoods have inadequate transit access, Roeder cited Zotti’s comments that “transportation experts seem disinclined to criticize something that has political momentum” and that there’s “widespread sense that any public transit expansion is a good project.”
If the black, Southside areas are indeed underserved with transit, by all means fix it. Nobody should question that, as Roeder, Zotti and other critics say.
But doing so in a cost-effective way must be made paramount, especially for poorer neighborhoods. Good public transit is essential for big cities, and nobody needs it more than low income workers to access jobs. Getting the best bang for the buck out of public transit dollars should be a moral imperative, making the Red Line extension the biggest misuse of those dollars in memory.
Chicago and its regional public transit providers already face a fiscal cliff with a budget deficit of over $700 million per year, and growing rapidly thereafter. No answers for that are even on the table. Public transit dollars must be spent with utmost care.
Surely, for far less than $5.7 billion, the CTA could smother the entire area many times over with bus service lasting for generations.
Now, the final insult: As part of its effort to sabotage federal spending cuts and favor projects it politically favors, the outgoing Biden Administration is attempting to lock the project in by contract. As reported by Crain’s in December, a funding agreement “will contractually obligate $1.9 billion in federal funding to the project, solidifying the federal government’s commitment about a month before President-elect Donald Trump takes office amid concerns he might pull back.”
The contracts awarded have already been announced, which you can see here. As described there and elsewhere, the contracts include many of the usual racial set-asides. “Key initiatives include allocating 10% of design work hours and 35% of construction work hours to residents from economically disadvantaged areas, dedicating 15% of construction hours to apprentices and trainees and a substantial push for diversity, with 22% of construction contracts earmarked for Disadvantaged Business Enterprises.”
Those requirements are ripe for discrimination challenges under the Supreme Court’s new, more restrictive rulings on racial preferences. That may be one avenue through which federal cost-cutters may fight back.
And fight back they should. If there’s a rational answer to the case against the Red Line extension, I haven’t found it.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
This column is updated to correct the line that now says current projections imply a cost of $2.9 million per ride.
With $162 billion more from taxpayers, couldn’t you deliver a few bond upgrades, too
Audio and summary 
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.
Just another wealth transfer that doesn’t increase anyone’s wealth…. Simply another immolation of good money.
Laughable and, at the same time, so sad this is considered a reasonable deployment of our tax dollars.
Talk about a huge waste of taxpayer money.
Just another thought. Wasn’t there a recent article about the office vacancy problem in downtown Chicago. Thousands of empty offices and plans to turn a couple of these non productive buildings into low cost housing? The trend isn’t going to change so why is another train to the Loop needed?
Even during the *best of times* the welfare leeches who infest the new Red Line service “extension area” don’t work, so this boondoggle is *doubly* stupid…
Hobos, homeless and winos need a place to sleep. Gang bangers, armed robbers, burglars and assorted other criminals need a ride to places where then can commit crimes. C’mon folks!
This is nuts. Throw more money into the financial sewer of mass transit.
At this point I don’t believe Biden is behind anything. He wasn’t that sharp in his prime, and he hasn’t had his wits during his entire presidency. If this country is still around in 100 years maybe the truth will be known.
Using Mr. Zotti’s numbers, that’s $2.9 million per ride, Mark. But who’s counting? As I have mentioned for years, with concurrence from Mr. Roeder, there is already rail transit in the area this prohibitively expensive project means to serve. This project is the definition of redundant. Why would the political animals use a pointless project like this to try and buy votes they already own? Simple. While it remains fairly rampant, it is more difficult for the friends and pals to grift off of operating state-run transit systems. It is far easier to bloat a construction budget to ensure the… Read more »
Thanks for catching that. I fixed it.
I just read Mr. Roeder’s most excellent column from 2023. I’m surprised he didn’t get an iron horsehead in his bed for daring to point out the obvious. To my discredit, I’d been relying too much on my history living on the Southeast Side and my rail experience. I hadn’t sought out the map of the $29 million/ride Red Boondoggle route. I was stunned how this line hugs the South Shore from 119th Street all the way until the old interurban turns east over the Borman Expressway. The political animals are physically routing this payment to friends and pals in… Read more »
We can only hope that DOGE gets on this fast.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but obvious disconnect, apparently proposed CTA Red Line Extension is far far away from serving proposed Chicago Quantum Campus…….more bridges to nowhere???
Train to nowhere for $1 billion a mile-perfect public project for you mopes in Chicago and Illinois.
Another instance of Biden throwing another monkey wrench into the works on his way out the door. He is truly committed to making his last few days full of harmful pardons, executive orders and everything he can as a last f u to the country he hates.
Follow the money and see who is making donations to the politicians supporting this boondoggle and you will have your answers as why this project is moving forward.
Love to see a breakdown on those costs. Going to look like a $500 oil change.
Maybe the bond market will do a little research and make the required interest rate cost prohibitive for issuing bonds. Who will fund trains, pensions, infrastructure and current interest payments for both the City and the State at the same time? No one who can move one state away.
No one wants to ride the red line down south due to the crime and they want to extend it to even more crime infested areas? How about a new line connecting the Brown and Blue line, so you don’t have to go downtown and back up.
I truly get disgusted with how bad the trains have become. This morning on the blue line, one car had people smoking, the next car had homeless sleeping and the next car people with open liquor and that is at 9am.
This is a union giveaway. That’s all that it is. Union workers will have a multi-billion dollar job to grift for a decade or more, and hopefully, next election, these disloyal unions remember who butters their bread and vote straight ticket Democrat, instead of considering Trump. The equity aspect of this is secondly, and pretextual, for the union giveaway.
Since the El is so safe and ridership is soaring to the point car capacity is stretched this makes perfect sense!
Can’t wait to ride the bullet train to Hammond or Sauk Village!
Not needed, waste of money, but that’s what politicians do
Who would ride it and to where? As stated, the money could be used to enhance the already existing options, instead of a new train full of empty cars.It’s not a question of black versus White, it’s a question of whether it’s needed.
It’s needed alright. All the way to Tennessee!
Great comment Joe.