Red Line's $5.3 billion extension still needs a big neighborhood vision

This editorial board has long supported the CTA Red Line extension, but we are more than alarmed about the project's new $5.3 billion price tag.

That's almost $2 billion greater than the $3.6 billion the public had been told the project would cost, and more than twice the $2.3 billion cost presented when the initial plans were announced six years ago. The CTA says the latest estimate reflects the rising costs of labor, materials and financing.

Let's be clear: The Far South Side and the city deserve the benefits that would come from extending the Red Line from 95th Street to 130th Street and building four additional L stations.

But for that kind of money, it's also time for Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration to unveil a major — and we mean big — plan to rebuild the communities around the stations. Because otherwise, what's the extension for, especially at such a huge price?

Last week, the CTA announced it awarded a $2.9 billion contract to Walsh-VINCI Transit Community Partners to design and build the extension.

So where is the Johnson administration's announcement of any new, visionary development — schools, retail, residences — to accompany the extension? What about the developers, city agencies and funding to make it happen?

And while Roseland's Michigan Avenue is being positioned to benefit from a new extension stop near 115th Street, that's only a start compared to what's needed, development-wise, along the new line.

In fact, if the extension is to be completed in 2030 as promised, construction on those new communities should have already started.

"The special skills that I have — they’re not fixing a broken bus, they’re not in running a train, they’re not in rebuilding a track — they’re in getting money," CTA President Dorval Carter said last week in announcing the Walsh-VINCI award.

Given the CTA's problem with broken buses and late trains, Carter's statement might not be the flex he thinks it is. But Carter raises a salient point: He's done his part to help the Far South Side.

Now it's the Johnson administration's turn. Otherwise, the "transit equity" the project is supposed to bring will be little more than sloganeering.

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