Recently, the Chicago Tribune, and three difference articles in Crain's, have questioned the $5.7 billion cost of the the 5.5-mile Red Line Extension. It would connect the current 95th Street terminal with the Far South Side's Altgeld Gardens housing project. An editorial in the weekly business newspaper went so far as to say, "There's still time to avoid one of the costliest boondoggles City planners have dreamed up since the parking meter fiasco... even to pull the plug on it."
"This is a project that has been promised for at least half a century," noted transit advocate, researcher, and environmental policy analyst Nik Hunder in a Streetsblog interview after the opinion pieces came out. All of these articles cited his March 18 post on the blog A City That Works, a deep dive into how the initiative's price tag ballooned to about a billion dollars per mile.
But Hunder said he's opposed to nixing the extension. "It's been passed over many times since the Seventies, and to once again get this close, and do all the work, and then to cancel it, would be a serious injustice to these communities." He added that the CTA has already purchased many Far South Side houses through eminent domain and demolished them to make way for the rail line. He argued that if the owners had to give up their homes for no reason, that would be extremely unfair.
Here's yet another argument for making sure the RLE train keeps a-rollin'. As Chicagolanders are well aware, "Pope Mania" has been sweeping our region ever since May 8, when Robert Francis Prevost was elected Bishop of Rome, and took the name Pope Leo XIV. That's because the Holy Father was born at Mercy Hospital at 25th Street and Michigan Avenue in the city's Bronzeville neighborhood, and grew up in south-suburban Dolton. By coincidence, a couple years ago I passed through that village on a Red Line + bicycle pilgrimage to the Shrine of Christ's Passion interactive half-mile path replicating the Stations of the Cross, in St. John, Indiana.
And the local craze over the new Vicar of Jesus Christ hasn't just involved involved t-shirts, keychains, and names for Italian beef sandwiches. Sustainable transportation advocates have gotten in on the action as well, as you can see from this photo from last month's edition of the Chicago Critical Mass bike parade/protest/party, dubbed "The Pope Mass."
Yesterday, I got an email from recent Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Commissioner Dan Pogorzelski, also nicknamed "The Mayor of Avondale" for his leadership role in that historically Polish-American Chicago community. He argued Pope Mania could shield the Red Line Extension against an attempt by the transit-hostile Donald Trump administration to withhold the $1.9 billion federal grant for the project, awarded shortly before Joe Biden left office
"As we’ve seen funding for transit projects rescinded across the country, the election of Pope Leo XIV has given us a powerful argument to thwart any effort by the White House to pull back monies allocated to this vital infrastructure improvement," Pogorzelski wrote. "I’m not sure if anyone has yet made the connection that the terminus of the Red Line Extension in Altgeld Gardens is about [two miles] away from the parish which the newly elected pope attended as a child, Saint Mary of the Assumption. Located at 13781 S. Leyden St. in [Chicago's Riverdale community area], this site was in the headlines recently."
"The owner of the former church, along with Preservation Chicago, are leading the effort to designate this building as an official landmark of the city of Chicago," Pogozelski added. "The Red Line Extension to Altgeld Gardens will likely be crucial to getting tourists as well as the faithful of the Roman Catholic Church who will want to pay homage to the new pontiff to the former church of Saint Mary of the Assumption."
As it stands, it wouldn't be particularly convenient to get from the future 130th Street Red Line station in Altgeld Gardens on foot or by transit. It would be a roughly 47-minute walk, or a two-bus ride. Moreover, it's only about a half-mile, roughly a ten-minute walk, from the nearby Riverdale Metra Electric District station. But, hey, if the CTA offered a shuttle bus from the Red Line to the historic monument, synched with the train, that would be a more affordable way to get to the church from as far away as the northernmost Red stop, on Howard Street in Rogers Park.
The good news is that Hunder said it's highly unlikely the feds would succeed in clawing back the $1.9 billion grant. So that's reason to be optimistic that the Red Line could eventually be nicknamed the "Popemobile."
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