CTA delays express trains to airports
MAYOR DEFENDS DECISION | With $100M cost overrun, agency seeks private partner
Facing more than $100 million in cost overruns, the CTA is delaying plans for express trains to O'Hare and Midway airports while it finds a private partner to help build a super rail station in the Loop.
Mayor Daley said the postponement should not affect the city's chances of nabbing the 2016 Summer Olympics. Chicago was named one of four finalists last week, but a report card raised questions whether the city's transportation facilities were sufficient.
(Sun-Times files)
"No, no. . . . This has nothing to do with the Olympics," Daley said after Wednesday's City Council meeting, insisting the additional assistance is needed to complete a state-of-the-art system.
"The technology is not up to date. I concurred with them delaying it because you cannot go with an old switch system," he said. "You cannot go with an old system and decide to make it [in] this century. I said, 'No way.' You have to come up with a whole new technology in moving those trains in and out of there at that intersection. It's an old lighting system, which is unacceptable."
At the CTA board meeting several blocks away, CTA President Ron Huberman announced that the project -- underneath Block 37 -- had a projected overrun of $100 million. Within a year, the CTA and the city will complete a proposal to be sent to private companies.
Block 37 developer Joseph Freed & Associates will continue working on the shells for the station and underground tunnels connecting the Red and Blue lines.
CTA officials didn't give an estimate when airport express service could start.
"I believe in general that there's a recognition that there's tremendous value in being the site that anchors a high-speed rail connection to the airport," Huberman said after the board approved $45.6 million more for the five-year-old project. "We are not abandoning this project."
Of the initial $213 million price tag, the CTA was originally slated to spend $130 million on the Block 37 super station.