Trump pauses $2.1B for Chicago infrastructure projects, leveraging
shutdown to pressure Democrats
[October 04, 2025]
By JEFF McMURRAY and CHRIS MEGERIAN
CHICAGO (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration will withhold
$2.1 billion for Chicago infrastructure projects, the White House budget
director said Friday, expanding funding fights that have targeted
Democratic areas during the government shutdown.
The administration is pausing a planned extension of the Red Line L
train to “ensure funding is not flowing via race-based contracting,”
budget director Russ Vought wrote on social media. The move throws
immediate uncertainty into a project that had promised to connect some
of the region's most disadvantaged and predominantly Black
neighborhoods.
Vought made a similar announcement earlier this week involving New York,
where he said $18 billion for infrastructure would be paused, including
funding for a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River.
Trump, a Republican, has embraced Vought’s tactics. On Thursday night,
he posted a video depicting him as the reaper, wearing a hood and
holding a scythe.
New delays for a long-awaited project
Losing the money would be a significant setback for Chicago’s
transportation plans. The Red Line extension is slated to add four train
stops on the city’s South Side that would bring the famous elevated
train to some of the poorest and most isolated neighborhoods in the
metropolitan area.
Rogers Jones, the director of a violence prevention youth center next to
the planned Roseland Red Line station, called the delay a severe blow to
some of the region’s most disadvantaged areas.
Officials have demolished houses, widened streets, cut grass and put up
signs throughout the area in preparation for the new station, he said.
“If you talk to any neighbors today, they want to curse, because they’ve
been anticipating that,” Jones said. “I just don’t understand the Trump
administration, bringing harm like that. It’s devastating when people
are expecting something good coming and it does not come.”
Antonio Thomas, a lifelong resident of the Roseland community, has been
helping unemployed neighbors get trained and certified to apply for
construction jobs the project was expected to bring.
“In our community, we really don’t have job uplift like that or
opportunities,” Thomas said. “It’s going to be a big blow if it doesn’t
go forward. People are already economically stressed.”
In addition, a broader modernization project for the Red and Purple
lines, which Vought said was also being targeted, is intended to upgrade
stations and remove a bottleneck where different lines intersect.
The Chicago Transit Authority said in an email that it was reviewing
letters from the Trump administration about the projects.
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Cars pass the 95th Street Red Line Station, the train station
currently the farthest south on the line and where the Chicago
Transit Authority plans to extend from in 2025, Thursday, Dec. 19,
2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley, File)
Local leaders push back
Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley, a Chicago Democrat, criticized the White
House’s announcement, calling it “a very bad day for public transit
in the country when it becomes weaponized.”
“This was our prized baby and they know it,” Quigley said in a phone
interview with The Associated Press. “This was the most important
new transit project in Chicago in 50 years.”
Illinois Democratic Rep. Robin Kelly also slammed the move, calling
Trump a “bully who does not negotiate in good faith and holds an axe
over South Siders' Red Line.”
“He is targeting Black people during a government shutdown,” Kelly
said in a statement.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson pledged to “use every tool at our
disposal to restore this funding.”
“Argentina gets $20 billion and the South Side gets nothing,"
Johnson said in a statement. "What happened to America First?”
In New York's case, Trump’s Transportation Department said it had
been reviewing whether any “unconstitutional practices” were
occurring in the two massive infrastructure projects but that the
government shutdown, which began Wednesday, had forced it to
furlough the staffers conducting the review.
The suspension of funds for the Hudson River tunnel project and a
Second Avenue subway line extension is likely meant to target Senate
Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, whom the White House is blaming for
the impasse. The New York senator said the funding freeze would harm
commuters.
“Obstructing these projects is stupid and counterproductive because
they create tens of thousands of great jobs and are essential for a
strong regional and national economy,” Schumer said on X.
A lawsuit could come next
Yonah Freemark, a researcher at the Urban Institute who specializes
in transit, said he expects Chicago and New York will now be forced
to sue to argue they were simply following federal law in pursuing
the projects they won through a competitive grant process.
Even if the cities ultimately prevail, the projects will take much
longer and be far more expensive because of the delays, Freemark
said. Competitive grant programs such as the ones under the
infrastructure law are in place in part to avoid partisan decisions
about how governments should divvy up the money, he said.
“I guess what we’re seeing in the Trump administration is that the
federal government can renege on their commitments with these
grants,” Freemark said.
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