The Bloomingdale Trail's eastern end is at Walsh Park, at Marshfield Avenue. If you keep heading east from there, you're on city streets, and you have to cross the busy Cortland and Ashland intersection to reach Elston Avenue. On September 23, 2026, City Council approved $201.6 million in tax increment financing for Foundry Park, the development planned for the former A. Finkl & Sons steel site along the North Branch of the Chicago River. One line in that package is $21.5 million for a 606 Trail extension.
That headline merges two projects into one. Extending the trail east means two separate pieces of work, run by different parties on different schedules. The piece that just got funded is the one with no construction date.
Piece one: Walsh Park to Elston, run by CDOT
The first piece is the Chicago Department of Transportation's extension from Walsh Park to Elston. The planned route goes over Ashland Avenue, under the Kennedy Expressway and the Union Pacific tracks, and then over Elston on an abandoned rail bridge. It ends just east of Elston. Trail users would get past the expressway and the Ashland crossing without riding in traffic.
CDOT's project page lists this schedule:
| Phase | CDOT's posted window |
|---|---|
| Preliminary engineering | Ongoing |
| Detailed engineering | Q1 2026 to Q2 2027 |
| Construction | Q4 2027 to Q4 2028 |
The same page also says, near the top, that construction was "estimated to begin in 2025." That line is out of date, and the phase schedule below it is the more detailed of the two. The schedule has moved before. Block Club's 2023 reporting expected the Elston leg to be done by the end of 2026. In January 2025, the expected finish moved to late 2027. CDOT's current schedule now runs construction into late 2028.
In 2023, Block Club reported a construction estimate of $30 million to $40 million for this city leg. That figure covers the leg to Elston only. The Foundry Park money does not pay for it.
That same year, Ben Helphand, co-founder of Friends of the Bloomingdale Trail, told Block Club the Elston plan would make it possible to go east-west "a lot more quickly and safely." He also told Streetsblog Chicago that political will could decide whether the project took three years or eight. Three years after he said it, the city leg is still in engineering.
Piece two: the river crossing, tied to Foundry Park
The second piece starts where the city leg ends. JDL Development has described a route from the Elston connection over the Chicago River into the southern part of Foundry Park. That would give riders and walkers an off-street route between Bucktown and Lincoln Park. Block Club reported in September 2025 that this would likely be the only river bridge built on the site, and it would serve trail users, not cars. The original Lincoln Yards concept had several vehicle bridges.
Here's how the river crossing fits into the approved infrastructure package:
- $70.9 million for roadways and utilities
- $69 million for new parks
- $33.5 million for river frontage improvements
- $21.5 million for the 606 Trail extension
- $6.9 million for site prep and general expenses
The city's June staff report puts the exact trail figure at $21,476,921, or 9.1% of the $234,889,834 total infrastructure cost. City TIF covers about 85.8% of that total. JDL and its partner Kayne Anderson cover about $33.3 million.
How the money is paid out explains why the bridge has no date. The city says the funds will be paid "as reimbursements as each infrastructure component is completed by the development team." The developer builds a piece first, and the city pays it back afterward. Approving the TIF commits the city to paying for a finished bridge. It doesn't start construction on one. Block Club's report on the vote still called the crossing a "potential extension of the 606's Bloomingdale Trail over the Chicago River." In July, Axios reported the river connection would be built in phases, with some portions outside Foundry Park itself.
The public descriptions also don't say exactly where the bridge would land, or how the trail would connect to the planned riverwalk, the parks, or Lincoln Park's streets.
The bridge moves at the speed of the development
Since the developer builds the bridge, its timing depends on Foundry Park's timing. Block Club reports construction on the first phase is set to begin later this year. At the council meeting, JDL CEO Jim Letchinger said the firm was still "putting together" the financing for that first phase. That phase is four buildings on a triangle bounded by Southport Avenue, Kingsbury Street, and Cortland Street. The tallest would rise 39 stories at Kingsbury and Cortland. A boutique hotel and two residential buildings would surround a "central square" that could host farmers markets and winter ice skating.
The full plan is much bigger. Southport Avenue would extend south to the river as the main commercial street, with several parks and a new riverwalk where the river's edge is re-naturalized with plants and trees. Ald. Brian Hopkins of the 2nd Ward, whose ward borders the site, put the overall timeline this way:
"This is a minimum 10-year project. Realistically, it's probably more like 15."
None of the sources give the river crossing its own date or say which phase includes it. Over a 10-to-15-year buildout, the bridge could come early or late.
The site has promised this bridge before
The trail-over-the-river idea is older than Foundry Park. The 2019 Lincoln Yards plan presented a 606 extension as a public benefit. In October 2020, developer Sterling Bay said work on the trail and a Dominick Street bridge would start in mid-2021 and take about two years. Its 2020 concept showed the trail running under the Kennedy, curving northeast over the river, and meeting a Lincoln Yards riverwalk. By July 2023, Block Club reported that none of the planned public bridges had moved forward. Only the city's leg to Elston was still in design.
This time the money is spelled out more clearly. Ald. Scott Waguespack of the 32nd Ward, whose ward includes the site, said the public funds will go to "the roadway, sewers, the new park spaces, the riverfront, the bridges and infrastructure for the extension of the 606." He contrasted that with the original Lincoln Yards deal, saying the money won't go to "legal fees" or "marketing."
The package also leaves out some infrastructure that was part of the original Lincoln Yards plan. That includes a rebuild of the Ashland, Armitage, and Elston intersection and several river bridges. Hopkins supported the deal after the city's transportation and planning departments agreed to study the area's broader infrastructure needs as plans for the southern part of the site take shape. Novak Construction bought that southern section, and its plans aren't public yet.
How the two clocks fit together
If CDOT stays on schedule, trail users could get a car-free route past Ashland and the Kennedy to the east side of Elston by late 2028. The river crossing would extend that route into Foundry Park, but no published date covers that step. It depends on the developer finishing the bridge before the city pays for it, inside a project its neighboring alderman expects to take 10 to 15 years.
One more thing: the river bridge only works if the Elston leg is finished, because it starts where that leg ends. So the September 23 vote funded the second half of the extension, and the trail still can't reach the river until CDOT builds the first half.
Whether you ride The 606 every day or live a few blocks from Walsh Park, these projects will change your route and your neighborhood for years. At The NextGEN Group, we track projects like the Elston leg and the Foundry Park buildout so you have clear, current answers when you're deciding where to buy, sell, or stay. If you have questions about what's planned near your block, reach out and Work with Us.
