More police officers are making their presence known on CTA trains and platforms in a new program designed to deter crime, the CTA’s boss said Thursday.
Officers began patrolling platforms in groups of six to eight this week in the CTA’s new Transit Rider Interaction Program, Acting Chicago Transit Authority President Nora Leerhsen said at a City Club of Chicago lunch.
As part of the program, officers line a platform, check in with operators and riders, and take the train to other stations, where they will perform the same duties, Leerhsen said.
“This visible law enforcement presence will serve as a deterrent to crime, one of the key components of creating a safe environment on CTA,” Leerhsen said.
Leerhsen spent much of her 45-minute keynote touting her accomplishments during her nearly one year on the job. Leerhsen has been leading the agency in an interim capacity since former CTA President Dorval Carter Jr. resigned last January. Mayor Brandon Johnson has not named a permanent replacement.
The past year has been busy for the CTA.
The agency was saved from drastic service cuts and layoffs last fall when state legislators passed a $1.5 billion bailout for Chicago-area transit. The law shifts power from the CTA — like the ability to set fares — to the incoming Northern Illinois Transit Authority, which will replace the Regional Transportation Authority in June.
And the CTA has been under increasing pressure to address transit safety, despite reported transit crime falling since after the COVID-19 pandemic. It follows a series of high profile crimes, including a horrific November attack on a Blue Line train, in which a man set a 26-year-old woman on fire.
The Federal Transit Administration cited that attack when it demanded in December that the CTA improve its security plan or face federal funding.
In response, Leerhsen said the agency was boosting its volunteer Chicago Police patrol by more than 40 officers a day. But the FTA blasted the plan as “materially deficient” and threatened to pull $50 million in funding. The FTA gave the CTA a March 19 deadline to submit a revised plan that addresses its concerns.
Speaking with reporters after her speech, Leerhsen said the CTA plans to respond to the FTA by the March deadline but declined to elaborate on how the safety plan may be revised. She also declined to say whether the CTA has requested CPD increase the number of officers on its public transit unit, which is separate from the volunteer program that was increased in December. The unit had 133 officers as of December, according to the city’s Office of the Inspector General dashboard.
The CTA has spent millions on private security guards and K9 units. But Chicago police officers play the primary enforcement role on the public transit system.
It’s security guards, not police officers, who expend the most manpower on the L, according to CTA’s initial response letter to the FTA in January. Private security guards, who don’t have arrest powers, worked an average of 65,000 hours monthly over the previous six months, according to the letter. By comparison, CPD officers in the public transportation section worked 21,000 hours, and officers in the volunteer unit worked 17,000 hours. Leerhsen said officers in the new Transit Rider Interaction Program come from both of the CPD volunteer and transit units.
Illinois’ new transit law, which goes into effect June 1, gives the incoming Northern Illinois Transit Authority board the power to make a systemwide police force, which could be set in motion next January.
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