Newman notes fed funds for the CTA

From staff reports

U.S. Rep. Marie Newman (D-3rd) recently said she has helped secure a $912.1 million award of American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds to the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA).

The new grant funding from the American Rescue Plan will help the CTA keep workers on the payroll as communities across the region continue to recover from the pandemic, she said.

U.S. Rep. Marie Newman

“The hardworking men and women of the CTA have kept the Chicagoland area moving throughout this pandemic, taking tens of thousands of residents and visitors where they need to go every single day,” Newman said in a statement. “With this new funding, we are not only ensuring that these transit workers stay on the payroll but also that CTA’s train and bus service continues to operate on time for commuters. I could not be prouder to have helped secure this critical funding as part of the American Rescue Plan.”

CTA employs approximately 10,600 workers who provided nearly 200 million trips in 2020. The ARP funds will support jobs across the metro area and allow CTA to continue providing low-carbon transportation service for the region’s 8.6 million residents.

This funding is part of more than $30 billion for public transportation in the American Rescue Plan Act, which was signed into law by President Joseph Biden last March. The funding comes from the $26.6 billion allocated by statutory formulas to urban and rural areas, Tribal governments, and for the enhanced mobility of seniors and individuals with disabilities. The Act also included $2.2 billion for additional transit pandemic-associated needs, with grants to be awarded by FTA later this year.

Newman also announced that she helped secure $513 million in American Rescue Plan funds for the Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad Corporation (Metra). To date, FTA has awarded more than $57.6 billion in COVID-relief funding to transit agencies nationwide.