Schlickman cautions that it is difficult to make direct comparisons between the CTA and its counterparts in the other cities. “I don't think CTA has had the opportunities that the other agencies have had.” The structure of Chicago's government, for one thing, with its tiny aldermanic fiefdoms that have great influence on any redevelopment effort, can make planning a little more challenging. Still, the other cities' efforts “are led by managers that have experience and/or training on both sides of the table,” meaning both transit and real estate development.

And the researchers found that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Agency had to be creative to fund improvements, since it does not have its own tax dedicated to its needs. In the 1990s, it first proposed its new NoMa-Gallaudet U stop, and “within the first two years of initial project identification there was an agreement forged with local landowners to provide what, at the time, was considered to be one third of project costs,” the researchers' report says. It was opened in 2004 at a cost of $103.7 million and since then “there has been $3 billion of private investment near the station involving eight million square feet of office, retail, residential and hotel construction.”

It's not as if Chicago hasn't come up with new methods to fund transit improvements, Schlickman says. The Morgan St. station that had such a seismic impact on the Near West Side, for example, was just one of many in the city funded by a TIF district. “It proved that TIFs can be a very efficient tool.”

However, “the difference between Chicago and the three previous case studies is that in all of Chicago's TIF funded examples the city and CTA acted in concert but with little coordination with other parties such as local community groups and developers,” the researchers say.

Schlickman adds that the developers that met with the university team wanted to remain anonymous, although he did say that one was Christopher Kennedy, the developer of Wolf Point and former chairman of the University of Illinois Board of Trustees.

In their discussions they did not come up with one specific tax that could be used for transit improvements. However, the researchers did walk away with the impression that under the right circumstances, which would include a robust collaboration with municipal officials, the developers would support such a funding mechanism. Schlickman says that Chicago's current method of planning could be creating “lost opportunities.”