Chicago Rail System On Verge of Collapse
Call it another canary in the infrastructure coalmine—hundreds of thousands of commuters in Chicago lurching to work on subway trains that run at times no faster than a brisk walk. The city’s century-old heavy rail transit has hit a dead end, with antiquated tax formulas, rising costs, deferred spending and agency mismanagement threatening to shove construction and expansion plans further onto a back burner with a blown-out pilot light. The nation’s second-largest transit system is struggling to cobble together the $16.1 billion it says it will need over the next decade in the region to get back on track and just into what transit officials call “a state of good repair.