Chicago Transit Authority sues feds over frozen Red Line Extension money

Talia Soglin, Chicago Tribune on Mar 20, 2026

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The Chicago Transit Authority filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Friday, alleging the feds violated the U.S. Constitution when they froze about $2 billion in federal grant money for the agency’s long-awaited Red Line Extension project.

The CTA says that unless federal Judge Thomas M. Durkin steps in by March 27, it will have to start winding down work on the project.

“Absent relief from this Court by that time, CTA will have to begin demobilizing work and notifying employees and contractors that they will soon be out of work, causing a cascade of immediate and irreparable harms to both CTA and the broader public,” attorneys for the agency said in a motion for a temporary restraining order filed in federal court in Chicago.

The administration of President Donald Trump froze $2.1 billion in federal grant dollars for the CTA in October, citing the agency’s diversity requirements for contractors. Most of those funds were slated for the Red Line Extension, a long-awaited project expected to bring CTA rail service to the city’s Far South Side. A much smaller portion of the federal funds were for the agency’s Red and Purple Modernization Project.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson slammed the funding freeze last fall, when he first indicated a lawsuit could be on the table.

“The South Side has fought for this for 50 years, and we have finally delivered it, and after 50 years of struggle to make sure that the South Side is prioritized, this president is now going to try to disrupt that? Not under my watch,” Johnson said at the time.

Over the last several months, the CTA has maintained that it’s full speed ahead on the Red Line project despite the fact that it had not been able to access federal dollars to pay for it.

In its lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Transit Administration, the CTA said it has had to take “extraordinary measures” to continue project work without federal funding, including issuing new bonds and extending new lines of credit.

“The interim flexibility afforded by these financial measures will imminently be exhausted,” attorneys for the CTA said in their lawsuit.

Spokespeople for the FTA and U.S. DOT did not immediately comment Friday.

The funds that are the subject of the CTA’s lawsuit are separate from the $50 million the FTA had previously threatened to withhold over the agency’s approach to violent crime.

The feds this week walked back threats to withhold those dollars — at least for the time being — after the CTA submitted a new safety plan that will see law enforcement hours boosted across the transit system.