Karyn Lacey lives beyond the brinks of the Red Line’s corridors. Getting to the CTA isn’t a 10, 15 or even 20 minute walk from her doorstep. For Lacey, a first year graduate student studying journalism at DePaul, riding the CTA means driving to a northern stop she feels comfortable at, and then taking the CTA to her classes downtown twice a week.
So when news broke that Chicago received $1 billion in federal funding to renovate the northern half of the Red Line, Lacey felt helpless.
“If anybody needs a renovation, it’s the South Side,” Lacey said. “You can’t do one side and not the other.”
The federal money, which was secured by the city last Monday, will kick off the first phase of the Red and Purple Modernization Plan. In waves, the city will renovate all the Red Line stops north of Belmont. Construction on the first phase begins in 2018, thanks to the federal grant, and will completely remake the Lawrence, Bryn Mawr, Argyle and Berwyn stops, in addition to adding a bypass that will intersect Red, Purple and Brown Line tracks. All stops will also have an elevator, making them fully accessible for the first time ever.
Still, with a significant investment in Chicago’s North Side, some Chicagoans wonder about its ramifications, and more notably, the status of the highly anticipated extension of the Red Line to 130th street.
“The renovations are a step in the right direction for Chicago,” Lacey said. “But it’s still hard for people from the South Side to travel to Chicago.”
Inconvenience and fear of the southern Red Line stops, coupled with the violence in the South Side, cause some in Lacey’s neighborhood of Chatham, to either drive to the city or another northern stop, or simply not venture to the city at all.
“The fact that it’s taken so long to even come up with a plan for the extension of the Red Line on the South Side is a legacy of structural racism,” said DePaul associate professor Winifred Curran, who specializes in geography and urban planning. “This incredible amount of investment going to the North Side and not to the South Side is unfortunate, and doesn’t have any good social justice implications.”
The funding comes just two weeks before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump and his new administration that is set to take office on Jan. 20.
The renovation of the four stops costs $2.1 billion, but the city could only seek the $1 billion federal grant if they were able to match the grant funding. So the city worked with legislators to create a tax increment financing district (TIF) — a financing method that invests the increases in tax revenues to a project or development — that is expected to generate $622 million. The established TIF, and funds from other resources, allowed the city to match and secure the grant. The now-established TIF will also help the city seek funding for other CTA projects, like the Red Line Extension Plan.
“It’s very hard for the city to do this all by itself,” Curran said. “The fact that this is federal money is evidence of that. We have not always had administrative in Washington that are city or public transit-friendly, so this was absolutely a strategic time to cease upon a mayor from Chicago to get this money.”
Red Line stops north of Belmont account for 40 percent of the CTA’s riders during rush hour. Additionally, the northern tracks, which were built in 1920, are nearing their life expectancy. Without this grant, the tracks would expire in a few years.
But the Red and Purple Modernization plan is just one part of Mayor Emanuel’s Red Ahead program — which is a series of initiatives to significantly improve the CTA. Right now, the 95th stop is under construction to improve its functionality, and is expected to be finished later this year.
“I think improving the Red Line is definitely a good thing that is needed,” DePaul junior Jaclyn Robust, who rides the Red Line to class daily, said. “However, I am curious about the construction and if it would interrupt daily commutes.”
For some, the renovations spring hope of a safer Red Line. Robust refuses to ride the Red Line at night, especially after a violent summer in the city.
Lacey, on the other hand, will ride the Red Line at night to certain stops, but is always aware and cautious.
“These renovations won’t help with the safety issues if they just do North Side. More people are frightened to ride the Red Line on the South Side,” Lacey said. “It sounds bad, but once I pass the Chinatown stop, I’m not as frightened anymore.”
But if the $1 billion the city received for the CTA renovations went to the Red Line Extension Plan, it would not have been enough to complete the entire project. The plan currently costs $2.3 billion, and the city has yet to complete a series of requirements before funding can begin.
Even with a plan to extend the Red Line, many are still waiting for a true investment in the South Side communities.
“This is a signal to these gentrified neighborhoods that public investment is going to continue in the North,” Curran said. “It’s really unfortunate that the South Side expansion was not included in this, and it should’ve been.”
