The federal government awarded the CTA $121.1 million to buy hybrid buses last week — while keeping nearly $2 billion in federal funding for the agency’s planned Red Line Extension frozen.
The CTA’s grant is the largest awarded this year under the Federal Transit Administration’s Grants for Buses and Bus Facilities and Low or No Emission Grant programs. It will allow the CTA to buy up to 150 fully-accessible hybrid buses, the agency said.
“This solution represents the best path forward today to meet our core mission of providing safe, reliable and efficient transit services while also reducing our impact on the environment,” the CTA said in a statement.
The agency’s chief financial officer, Tom McKone, said during a budget presentation at the Regional Transportation Authority last week that the buses would be replacing vehicles that are nearing 20 years on the streets. The CTA hoped to bring the new buses to Chicago “as soon as possible,” McKone said.
The bus grant comes as the feds last month froze $2.1 billion in the CTA’s federal grant money, most of which is for the agency’s massive Red Line Extension Project, citing the agency’s diversity programs for contracting.
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Illinois elected officials slammed the pause of the funding, which the CTA was awarded under former President Joe Biden’s administration.
For its part, the CTA has said it’s full steam ahead on the project, which would extend the Red Line from 95th St. to 130th St. and which advocates defend as a long-overdue promise to the Far South Side despite ballooning costs. In budget meetings, transit officials have treated the Red Line project as a foregone conclusion, despite the uncertainty regarding its federal funding.
The U.S. Department of Transportation did not immediately respond to a question about the status of the Red Line grant funding Monday.
Suburban bus agency Pace also received a hybrid bus grant of nearly $40 million.
Pace said it will use its grant to buy three dozen hybrid-electric buses for its West Division, which serves Cook and DuPage county suburbs.
The bus agency previously received a $30.9 million grant under the same program in 2024, which it used to buy 33 hybrid buses. Those buses started to arrive this October, Pace said.
The grants for CTA and Pace come weeks after a federal judge ruled the Trump administration cannot withhold federal transportation funding from states that refuse to cooperate with immigration enforcement. Illinois was a plaintiff in the lawsuit.