WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Transportation on Friday said it would withhold $2.1 billion in previously awarded for two Chicago Transit Authority infrastructure projects, citing a rule issued earlier in the week barring Disadvantaged Business Enterprise programs for federally funded projects.
The move is the second this week targeting major transit projects in locations with state and local governments led by Democrats, following the earlier announcement that the federal government would withhold almost $18 billion in funding for transit projects in the New York City area [see “Trump administration freezes federal support …,” Trains.com, Oct. 1, 2025].
The decision halts a grant finalized earlier this year by the Federal Transit Administration for $1.97 billion for the CTA’s Red Line Extension [see “FTA finalizes grant …,” Trains.com, Jan. 10, 2025]. That project would add 5.5 miles and four new stations south of the current Red Line terminus at 95th Street and the Dan Ryan Expressway. Also affected is the CTA’s Red and Purple Modernization Project for improvements on those two rapid transit lines. Phase one of that project, including a new bypass, four new stations, and a new signal system, is largely complete.
“Illinois, like New York, is well known to promote race- and sex-based contracting and other racial preferences as a public policy,” the DOT said in a press release. It said the agency would review those projects to “ensure no additional federal dollars go towards discriminatory, illegal, and wasteful contracting practices,” but that that review process would be delayed by the current shutdown of the federal government.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson blasted the decision as “politically motivated” in a press release, and said the city will “use every tool at our disposal to restore this funding.”
“Argentina gets $20 billion,” Johnson said, referring to a proposed administration bailout for the economy of that South American nation, “and the South Side gets nothing. What happened to America First?”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker — a vocal critic of the Trump administration — said in a social media post that the administration is “attempting to score political points but is instead hurting our economy and the hardworking people who rely on public transit to get to work or school.”
