Overview
- U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin on Tuesday granted a temporary restraining order directing the Transportation Department to resume payments for the Red Line Extension and Red & Purple Modernization.
- The order is on hold until 10 a.m. Friday to give the government time to appeal, with payments set to restart at that time absent a reversal.
- Durkin said the administration acted unreasonably by applying a new ban on race- and sex-based contracting goals to grants awarded under earlier rules, and he wrote that limited enforcement against Chicago and New York suggested a pretext.
- USDOT froze payments in October during a contracting review that CTA said would force work to stop this week without court relief.
- News reports place the withheld sum between about $2 billion and $3.1 billion for the two projects, which include extending the Red Line to 130th Street and finishing modernization work on the North Side.