Chicago Gets Federal Money for TOD Planning Efforts to Accompany Red Line Extension

Chicago received $1.48 million dollars for transit-oriented planning around a planned 130th Street Red Line elevated train stop through the U.S. Department of Transportation's Transit-Oriented Development Pilot Planning Program. "This initiative provides funding to local communities to integrate land use and transportation planning with a new fixed guideway or core capacity transit capital investment," John Greenfield writes for Streetsblog Chicago. These funds would aim to get the most out of the new stop in terms of ridership and economic development by allowing more housing near the stop and connecting it to other transit services.

But, will that station ever be built? A great deal of preliminary work is underway including a $21 million contract for planning and this TOD work, but the anticipated $2.3 billion to build the station has not yet been secured. "One possibility for funding the massive Red Line extension construction project would be a new Illinois transportation and infrastructure funding bill, something that governor-elect J.B. Pritzker says he wants to pursue," Greenfield opines. The city would also likely look to secure federal funds, and outgoing mayor Rahm Emanuel has proposed a gas tax increase that could factor into the funding as well.