Precast, prestressed concrete I-beams for the Red-Purple Modernization Program

By Emily Hereford and David Depp

With an average weekday ridership of 1.6 million and routes spanning the city of Chicago and its 35 surrounding suburbs, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is the second-largest transportation system in the United States. The Red-Purple Modernization Program (RPM) is the largest capital project in CTA’s history. 

The Red-Purple Modernization Program is a multi-phased program to improve the 90-year-old infrastructure of the CTA’s Red and Purple transit lines along a 9.6-mile stretch of tracks from Belmont Avenue on the northside of Chicago to Linden Avenue in suburban Wilmette. The design-build team was awarded a $2.1 billion contract for phase 1 of the project in 2018 and received notice to proceed in early 2019.

With any major infrastructure projects like this come unique challenges and roadblocks, from maintaining rail operations during construction to following safe construction practices in a limited work area. In this Aspire Magazine article, Stantec’s Emily Hereford and David Depp share details on the latest construction progress of the CTA Red-Purple Modernization project.