During her State of the Village address in early May, Skokie mayor Ann Tennes suggested that the city was in “preliminary talks” about the possibility of extending the Chicago Transit Authority’s Yellow Line to the Old Orchard corridor.
Amid this discussion, some transit advocates in Evanston have renewed their calls for a Yellow Line extension into South Evanston.
The Yellow Line has a long history in South Evanston, dating back to 1925. The city had stops at Dodge Avenue, Asbury Avenue and Ridge Avenue until 1948, according to the Evanston Transit Alliance.
The Envision Evanston 2045 Comprehensive Plan, which City Council adopted in January, includes plans to add a new Yellow Line station.
Currently, the Yellow Line in the 8th Ward remains largely unusable to residents, Ald. Matt Rodgers (8th) said.
“We can’t really access it, so it just exists, like the metro tracks do behind my condo,” Rodgers said. “Nobody really uses it for anything.”
He said he thinks 8th Ward residents would go more places if the Yellow Line were extended, since other options, such as using a bike, can be limiting. For example, he said, when riding a bike to Dempster Street and Skokie Boulevard, people use major streets with relatively faster traffic, which can be challenging for some.
By adding another station, people can make use of Yellow Line tracks already available in South Evanston, said Robert Keding, the communications chair at the ETA.
“It just makes so much sense to use that infrastructure that already exists and to provide that access that is desperately needed for increased mobility in the community,” Keding said.
Keding added that a Yellow Line extension would allow senior citizens to use the train instead of a car to get to the Levy Senior Center and that others could more easily reach businesses along Howard Street.
Ald. Juan Geracaris (9th) said he strongly supports a Yellow Line expansion, adding that he thinks funding from the CTA will be the most important element.
“The biggest factor is funding for the CTA, and I’m hopeful that with recent legislation that it will be more of a possibility, but it’s something that’s worth our time advocating for,” Geracaris said.
As an example of recent legislation relating to transit reform, Geracaris pointed to the Northern Illinois Transit Authority Act. NITA, signed into law in December, will take effect in June 2026 and allocate “significant, increased funding for projects like infill stations,” he said, which are stations built into existing lines.
Rodgers said to fund a Yellow Line extension, he expects that there will need to be support at the federal level from Congress and the presidential administration, in part because he thinks it will be part of a larger undertaking.
“This will be part of something else major, because I doubt if this is just a little one-off project,” Rodgers said. “It’ll be part of a modernization, putting elevators in, in certain stations, things like that.”
Rodgers added that gaining federal funding for CTA expansion in Evanston is unlikely at the moment because of the current presidential administration.
Although he does not expect federal support for the project at the moment, Keding said the next presidential administration could be “very different” and “transit-friendly.” He said state leaders could also advocate for the expansion.
“We’ve also got a lot of support from state representatives,” Keding said. “We’ve also never been in a better position in terms of the state and others potentially putting things in motion as well.”
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