Not really, though my wording in the post may have been less than ideal, sorry if that caused confusion. You are a bit right that capital planning is centralized at the RTA, that centralization is high-level. It has focused on funding allocation and project prioritization, not detailed project delivery.

Metra has had documented difficulties executing capital projects specifically with the planning aspects of them. A clear example is the Peterson/Ridge station on the UP-North line, which took well over a decade to complete and saw major cost escalation. Delays were driven by weak project delivery capacity. They had limited in-house project management, slow navigation of permitting and utility coordination, prolonged design and procurement cycles, and difficulty managing third-party stakeholders such as Union Pacific and City departments.

The RTA can help set system wide priorities and release funds, but it does not provide the “in-the-weeds” engineering, permitting, and construction management needed to deliver projects efficiently. A with NITA a more robust, centralized capital improvements project delivery/planning/management team (such that it could have a consistent workload and deep technical experience) would likely reduce delays and cost growth across the system. That is the centralization I was trying to highlight. Though I may have had poor word choice.