CTA capital budget includes investment in the Red Line Extension

Got this e-mail this week from CTA regarding the Red Line extension

On November 20, 2019, the Chicago Transit Board approved a $1.57 billion operating budget that preserves existing bus and rail service levels, while continuing the agency’s unprecedented efforts to modernize its infrastructure and improve the CTA travel experience for customers.

CTA’s 2020 capital budget includes a commitment to invest $310 million into the $2.3 billion Red Line Extension (RLE) project, which will extend the Red Line south by 5.3 miles and include four new, fully accessible stations at 103rd Street, 111th Street, Michigan Avenue, and 130th Street. This is the single most significant funding contribution that CTA has ever made towards the RLE project, and will fund work efforts, including engineering and design activities, to help position the RLE project to receive federal funding.

The 2020 Budget Recommendations book is posted on CTA's web site under Finance & Budget and is available here.

Two photographs were with the email one of which I will show you here. It advertised CTA's efforts to connect with those stakeholders with regards to this future project. You might recognize one face in the photograph long time leader in West Chesterfield Michael LaFargue.

Property tax hike likely to pay for public schools

Sun-Times:

Faced with a “tsunami” of teacher pension costs, Chicago public school officials want to raise city property taxes by $43 million, or 1.5 percent, a new budget released today indicates.

The hike would mean an $18 increase on a typical Chicago home valued at $262,000 — far less than the $77 increase the system could have assessed by taxing to the maximum allowed, said Chicago Schools CEO Ron Huberman.

Despite an ailing economy that has taken a bite out of most households, some help from property owners is needed to fill a $475 million budget hole — the largest in at least a decade, Huberman said.

And, he warned, even worse news is ahead. The next budget deficit, in fiscal year 2011, could top $900 million — a hole so big the system would have to increase class sizes and eliminate teachers unless “cost containment on the pension and wage fronts’’ is achieved, Huberman said.

Greg Hinz has more:

In addition to the tax hike, Mr. Huberman said the district hopes Gov. Pat Quinn will sign a bill now on his desk that would speed up the property tax billing system.

Under current law, landowners pay roughly half of their total bill in the spring and the rest in the fall, with the latter including any increase for the year. Under the measure awaiting gubernatorial action, 55% of the bill would be paid in the first half of the year, a one-time revenue shift that Mr. Huberman said would give CPS an additional $85 million for fiscal 2010, which began on July 1.

The Sun-Times article via Newsalert!

Good, bad and ugly: Illinois' new capital plan

Greg Hinz likens passing legislation in Springfield to making sausage. Especially looking at the key successes and failures made by Gov. Quinn in pushing through the recently enacted capital plan.