Yellow Line extension in Skokie could take ‘decades’ but CTA is studying it

Somewhere in the Chicago Transit Authority’s records, there reportedly exists a study on the viability of extending the Yellow Line train route farther into Skokie.

The CTA is now “dusting that (study) off” to better understand opportunities and challenges for extending the rail line; though actually implementing an extension would take years, maybe even decades, said Molly Poppe, the agency’s chief planning and innovation officer.

Poppe provided the Skokie Village Board on Monday an update on the Yellow Line’s ridership, crime levels and extension prospect after Mayor Ann Tennes said she requested the CTA address “several safety issues” the route reportedly has experienced over the past decade. 

The Yellow Line — which has two stations in Skokie: Dempster and Oakton streets — ferried 442,109 riders last year, according to Poppe. 

That’s 46% fewer passengers than the 832,225 the Yellow Line ferried in 2019, she said. She noted that one of the CTA’s “biggest challenges” is the Skokie area has a “high rate” of people working from home and mobility patterns have changed in the wake of the pandemic.

The Yellow Line’s 53% ridership dip, compared to prepandemic levels, is less than the nearly 70%-and-growing retention rate the CTA is seeing systemwide compared to prepandemic levels, Poppe said. 

Trustee Lissa Levy suggested extending the Yellow Line to the Westfield Old Orchard area for commuting workers and students could help boost the Skokie Swift’s ridership. 

Poppe said there are a number of “complex considerations” the CTA would have to examine for extending the line, like whether there is available land for another station. Both dense residential pockets and vacant underutilized space would help the case for an extension, she said. 

Poppe noted that the CTA’s decision to revitalize the Wilson Red/Purple Line station in Chicago led to about 14,000 new residential properties in the area; though the effort to modernize the line reportedly took 12 years before construction even broke ground. 

“There’s a lot of empirical evidence that shows that when you make a transit investment —  especially a station investment, really, when you have frequent bus service like a (bus rapid transit) or an extension — it can have that benefit of driving economic growth,” Poppe said. 

Poppe also said that the Northern Illinois Transit Authority, a new agency the state created last year to oversee Chicago-area transit, has “unlocked so much money” for the CTA. 

But while Poppe said there are “still many opportunities” to make investments to the Yellow Line, the CTA will have to review what it’s done for the route in the past, what was successful and what didn’t work before possibly coming back to Skokie for a conversation on options.

Besides the Yellow Line’s ridership and potential extension, Poppe addressed a service issue that happened in April. A train did not derail as reported, Poppe said. Instead, she said, a train did not wait for signal clearance and so there was a case of “improper operation.”

In order to prevent that from happening again, Poppe said the CTA has offered additional management training for this area, and the agency can work to improve its communication with village staff so that Skokie is aware of how CTA workers are responding to an issue. 

Crime is down in the CTA systemwide for the fifth straight month, Poppe said, and the CTA has seen a 75% surge in police hours on the system over the last couple of months. Crisis intervention and violence prevention workers reportedly have also been added to the system. 

Poppe said the Oakton station was revitalized in 2024 and the Dempster station is scheduled to be improved by early August. 

When it comes to CTA bus lines that run through Skokie (#54A, #97, #201), Poppe said the three routes’ year-to-date ridership retention compared to prepandemic levels (68%) is also below the systemwide number (80%). 

That said, the CTA decided in 2023 to increase evening service on the #97 bus route to Old Orchard by two hours, so it now runs till 10:30 p.m.

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