Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/chicago-transit-agency-gets-an-upgrade-thanks-to-stimulus-money Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript In Chicago, stimulus funds provide a transit agency with a much-needed upgrade. NewsHour correspondent Elizabeth Brackett reports. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. ELIZABETH BRACKETT, correspondent: The sound of the jackhammers boomeranged deep in the Chicago subway tunnel. Wooden ties that had been in place for over 50 years finally gave way under the pressure.The $88 million project to replace rails for the Chicago Transit Authority, or CTA, was one of the first big transit projects to be funded by the stimulus plan.Ill. Sen. Dick Durbin thought fixing seven miles of track was a perfect use of the federal stimulus funds. SEN. DICK DURBIN, D-Ill.: The idea was to put a substantial amount of investment back in public infrastructure. And so we allocated the money to the agencies that get that done. The public transportation was a major part of it. Then we turned to the local units of government and to the state and said, "What do you have that's ready to go?"