Want to speed up a road or transit project? Just host a political convention

CHICAGO (AP) — Chicago officials had planned to open a new elevated train station near the United Center more than four years ago, but numerous delays left some neighbors wondering if it ever would happen.

Then the Democratic National Committee picked the city to host its convention.

Construction crews scrambled to finish work this month on the Damen green line L stop before delegates arrived, with most of the high-profile events set for the home of the Bulls and Blackhawks less than a half-mile away. Featuring such flourishes as wooden ceilings, a colorful mural and a glass pedestrian walkway overlooking the Chicago skyline, the new station fills a 1.5-mile (2.4-kilometer) service gap created when a previous stop there closed in 1948.

“It was on target to get done, but the DNC made it quicker,” said Alderman Walter Burnett, who spent years lobbying for the project for his West Side City Council ward. “That helped a lot, and I loved it.”

Cities might factor the ability to host major events when prioritizing infrastructure upgrades, but rarely do they embark on big-ticket projects just to land a political convention or woo its delegates. Speeding up construction, however, is another matter.

Victor Matheson, economics professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, co-authored a study that concluded the economic expectations for hosting national political conventions are often “unrealistically large.” Still, he said, there’s “a lot of political will” to accelerate already planned upgrades to impress out-of-town guests — even for an event that lasts just four days.

“The real question with these sort of things is, if this is such a good project, why wasn’t the political will there before?” Matheson said.

After the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, officials there concluded the event directly generated $214 million for the local economy. But more than half the amount cited was for telecommunications upgrades the city would have eventually needed anyway, Matheson said.

Milwaukee hosted last month’s Republican National Convention and the pandemic-altered 2020 Democratic National Convention without any significant public infrastructure investments directly tied to them, city engineer Kevin Muhs said. However, it did adjust the timing of some road projects earlier this year in anticipation of a citywide construction halt during the RNC.

One of Milwaukee's most politically divisive infrastructure projects is the streetcar known as The Hop, which expanded service to the lakefront earlier this year over objections from some Republicans who argued it was a waste of money. But part of the city’s agreement with the Republican National Committee to host the convention stipulated that the service would be open for delegates to use, Muhs said.

Landing the 2016 Republican National Convention was a major reason Cleveland accelerated construction on overdue airport upgrades, a large downtown park called Public Square and a hotel attached to the convention center, said David Gilbert, who served as CEO of the local host committee.

“It was a city that had gone through decades of hard times and was coming back,” Gilbert said, citing the nearly 15,000 members of the national media that descended on Cleveland for the RNC. “It was a great way to show we were ready to host this sort of thing.”

Many of the upgrades were already in place a month earlier when the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Golden State Warriors for their first NBA championship, with home games in the same arena. And the spruced-up downtown was back on the national stage once again that fall with the World Series, which the Cleveland Indians lost in Game 7 to the visiting Chicago Cubs.

During the news conference and ribbon-cutting at the new Chicago L station, officials made only passing references to the Democratic National Convention and instead focused on the transit help for underserved residents on the South and West sides.

Still, Mayor Brandon Johnson concluded his remarks with a nod to the convention, proclaiming that Chicago was “ready to host the world ... so this station comes at a perfect time.”

Commuters Take Action, a group that advocates for more reliable transit options in Chicago, called it “a little sad that it took the hosting of the DNC instead of the everyday needs of Chicagoans to get this project across the finish line.” However, the group’s statement celebrated the station’s opening and encouraged visitors to use transit during the convention and push for more funding on a national level.

Some residents who took the train out of the Damen station on its first day wondered just how influential the convention was in moving up the grand opening.

“I feel like it shouldn’t be the main fuel for projects like this. It should be the communities and the people who live in them,” rider Angelica Arzuaga said. “But I guess it’s a win-win.”

A Chicago Transit Authority employee paints a post at the Ashland Ave. station Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, near the United Center where the Democratic National Convention will convene Monday, August 19, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

A Chicago Transit Authority employee paints a post at the Ashland Ave. station Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, near the United Center where the Democratic National Convention will convene Monday, August 19, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

A pedestrian and child walk past a Chicago Transit Authority employee as he makes repairs at the Ashland Ave. station Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, near the United Center where the Democratic National Convention will convene Monday, August 19, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Chicago Transit Authority employees work on the platform at the Ashland Ave. station Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, near the United Center where the Democratic National Convention will convene Monday, August 19, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Construction continues on the new Chicago Transit Authority's Damen Ave. Green Line station Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, near the United Center where the Democratic National Convention will convene Monday, August 19, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Construction continues on the new Chicago Transit Authority's Damen Ave. Green Line station Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, near the United Center where the Democratic National Convention will convene Monday, August 19, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

A Chicago Transit Authority Green Line train passes the new Damen Ave. station Sunday, Aug. 4, 2024, near the United Center where the Democratic National Convention will convene Monday, August 19, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

A Chicago Transit Authority train pulls into the new Damen Ave. station just two blocks from the United Center Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, one week before the start of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

A Chicago Transit Authority train pulls into the new Damen Ave. station just two blocks from the United Center Monday, Aug. 12, 2024, one week before the start of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is quieter on Friday, and U.S. stocks are drifting after they leaped to records the day before during a worldwide rally.

The S&P 500 was 0.1% lower in early trading but still on track for its fifth winning week in the last six. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 66 points, or 0.2%, after it likewise set an all-time high the day before. The Nasdaq composite was virtually flat, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time.

FedEx dragged on the market with a drop of 14% after its profit and revenue for the latest quarter fell short of analysts’ expectations. It said U.S. customers sent fewer packages through priority services, while it had to contend with higher wages for workers and other costs. FedEx also cut its forecast for revenue growth for its fiscal year.

Helping to offset that was Nike, which ran 7.5% higher after it named Elliott Hill as its chief executive. Hill, 60, had spent more than three decades at Nike in various leadership positions before retiring in 2020. He replaces the retiring John Donahoe.

Shares in Trump Media and Technology Group slumped another 6% as its biggest shareholder, former President Donald Trump, won the freedom to sell his shares if he wants.

Trump owns more than half of the $3 billion company behind the Truth Social platform. But Trump and other insiders in the company had been unable to cash in because a “lock-up agreement” prevented them from selling any of their shares. Trump has said he’s in no rush to sell.

TMTG’s drop on Friday was in line with its volatile history. Over the last six months, it’s often swung by at least 5% in a day, up or down.

Homebuilder Lennar fell 4.2% after delivering a mixed earnings report. Its profit for the latest quarter topped expectations. But it also said it made less in profit on each $100 of home sales, and it expects that margin to stay flat in the current quarter.

Conditions may be set to improve for homebuilders, though. The Federal Reserve earlier this week cut its main interest for the first time in more than four years, a move that could make mortgages more affordable for home buyers.

The momentous move closed the door on a run where the Fed kept its main interest rate at a two-decade high in hopes of slowing the U.S. economy enough to stamp out high inflation. Now that inflation has fallen from its peak two summers ago, Chair Jerome Powell said the Fed can focus more on keeping the job market solid and the economy out of a recession.

The Fed is still under pressure because the job market and hiring have begun to slow under the weight of higher interest rates. Some critics say the central bank waited too long to cut rates and may have damaged the economy.

Critics also say the U.S. stock market may be running too hot on hopes that the Federal Reserve will be able to pull off what seemed nearly impossible a couple years ago: getting inflation down to 2% without creating a recession.

Barry Bannister, chief equity strategist at Stifel, is still calling for a sharp drop for the S&P 500 by the end of the year. He points to how much faster stock prices have climbed than profits at companies. When stocks have looked this expensive on such measures in the past, he said a recession and sharp downturn for stocks has followed.

He also warned in a report that slowing hiring “is now symbolic of recession risk.”

No economic releases are on the calendar for Friday to show where the economy may be heading. Next week will have preliminary reports on U.S. business activity, the final revision for how quickly the economy grew during the summer and the latest update on spending by U.S. consumers.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 3.75% from 3.72% late Thursday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes fell across much of Europe after rising in Asia. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.5% after the Bank of Japan left interest rates steady, as was expected.

In China, the central bank left key lending rates unchanged on Friday. Indexes rose by 1.4% in Hong Kong and less than 0.1% in Shanghai.

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AP Writers Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed.

A bus passes the Wall St. subway station on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)

Trader Michale Conlon, right, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's news conference appears on a television screen behind him, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index and Japanese Yen exchange rate at a securities firm Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person stands in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

People ride bicycles in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person rides a bicycle in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)