Morning everybody, the committee on tra.
We will now have a roll call to establish quorum.
Will the alderman please make sure their
microphones are unmuted?
Please note that you're a yes
or present response will be deemed
to be a yes vote when this quorum roll call
is used for reference.
Vote for late items.
Thank you, chairman Mitchell, president
Vice Chair Vazquez Emman Conway.
Ottoman Irving. Ottman Fuentes.
Emman Gutierrez, Ottoman Harris. Ottoman Hopkins.
Alderman Moore. Ottman Mosley. Emman Nugent.
Ottman Rodriguez. Altman Wapac. Alderman Yancy.
There are nine members present. We have a quorum.
Alderman Irving, alderman Mosley,
alderman Vazquez, and Alderman.
Yancy has requested remote participation under Rule 59
of the rules of order and procedures of the city Council.
Can I get a motion to accept remote participate for the
above mentioned Ottoman Rodriguez.
So moves on the motion. All in favor say aye.
Those opposed no in the opinion of the chair,
the ayes have it.
We'll start this morning off with public comment.
At this time we'll begin the public comment period.
Out of respect for everybody's time.
Public comment will be limited to 30 minutes
and each speaker, no.
You okay? We need a little levity this morning.
Public comment will be limited to to 30 minutes
and each speaker is limited to three minutes.
So our first speaker, well
before I do it, let me make sure we here.
So we have Nathan Roberts,
Lynn card, now
Aurora, Connor Durkin.
Elizabeth Kotz,
Laka, salt Saltzman,
Erica Saline,
Washington name Alex Perez.
Mia. Help me with this one.
Roza Anderson. Did I do it right?
Fritz Anderson. Uh, Sarah Ey
Cyrus DLA
Sohi and Dr.
Chloe Groom. All right.
Chairman Mitchell.
Um, Ivin Irving.
Yeah, I just wanted to, uh, confirm. I'm, I'm here.
That's all. Thank you sir.
We have you. So we get started
with the con public comment.
I want to acknowledge non-members in the room.
We have Chairman Pat Dow, uh, Orman, Timmy Knutson.
Mona Howorth. Daniel LA Chairman Daniel Daniel LaSpada.
Oh Chairman Byron Ccho Lopez. All right.
Our first public, uh, public speaker will be Nathan Roberts.
Hello, I am Nathan Roberts.
I am a resident of Chicago and a CTA, uh, rider.
Um, I ride the bus
and the train, uh, very frequently, uh,
almost daily, uh, here in the city.
Um, I'm here to present, uh, support
for having a special session to get the CTA funded, um, as
I use the CTA for groceries work, uh, social hours
with friends and family, it's my way of life.
I was able to weather the storm of, you know,
as we're all aware, a very difficult economic, uh,
situation we find ourselves in.
And selling my car, uh, has allowed me to do that.
And the CTA has been a huge boon.
The idea of having to go back to driving is a scary thought
for me, where I'm not sure if I could afford that.
Um, possibly forcing me out of the city.
And I have seen so many other benefits from riding the CTA
as, you know, even my family was skeptical,
but when they come visit, they boast about the city,
the convenience of riding the trains and buses with me.
And they, they used to talk so poorly about Chicago,
but now in the visit, they just have smiles
and talk so happily about it as they look out the window
of the trains and the buses.
But the CTA is more than just a convenience.
It really is such a boon to the city
as it cuts down the traffic congestion.
As I'm sure many meetings that will be a huge concern
to many residents, the pollution
and noise that would hamper the livability in the city.
Having the CTA has made the city nicer to live in,
but has also saved the city tons of money as car traffic,
pollution and death of pedestrians is a cost
that we cannot afford.
Please fund the CTA. Thank you.
Thank you Mr. Roberts.
Our next public speaker is Leon Card.
Morning everyone. Um, it's great to see a lot
of familiar faces here today.
I feel like I've aged quite a bit in the last 15 years,
so it's, uh, happy to see everyone here.
Um, my name is Lynn Ez. I'm an urban planner by trade.
I've worked in Edgewater, the fourth ward.
Hello Alderman Dow, um, and uptown.
But that's not what I'm here to talk about today.
I'm here to talk about a very personal part of my life.
I am a veteran,
A disabled veteran.
I quit driving about 10 years ago.
I've broken 29 bones, crushed my lung and my heart.
My left hand was taken off.
I've had 17 major surgeries, removal of half
of both hips to rebuild my spine, which is now metal.
It's very difficult to drive, so I no longer do it.
Public transportation is my lifeline to my life.
I also think of it as the place
where I might meet the future.
Mr Car does. I
am a working class person.
I was a business owner.
After I left QCDC, I opened up a produce market.
All of my employees took public
transportation years ago.
I worked three jobs at once
and I want to explain that coupled with
that big b******t bill that just passed,
it's gonna have a deliber victorious effect on working class
people throughout our great state.
And it's going to affect those at the lowest rung
of the latter disabled people
and working class people the most.
We are the economic engine of the state,
and we all know that what we do here
funds the programs that help the people down south.
And we need to understand that responsibility that we have
to our brothers and sisters to the south of us.
Because we are the city of big shoulders.
We make no small plans.
We are here to work
and support one
another by city officials.
Ignoring this simple fact by neglecting the working people
of this city, the outcomes will affect the entire
state, the GDP of our city funds
that fund our programs
for not only city officials, but also,
You know what? Let her, let
her, let her keep going.
If you, sorry, give you a little latitude on that. I
Can't understand you. I,
I was letting you finish your
Thank you sir.
I would like to say in closing that I believe in the power
of government to do good.
I just want everyone to think about this bill
as affecting the entire state
because it's going to, it's gonna affect jobs and revenue
and tax public transportation
affects everything in our city.
I'm a huge fan. So I'd like the city council
to please think about this as you move forward in working
through this bill and please call our state officials
to urge them to call a special session for this funding.
Bill, thank you so much. Have a great day everyone.
Thank you.
Alright, our next speaker is Nile Aurora.
Hey everyone. Uh, good morning. Uh, my name is Nile.
I live here in the 42nd Ward and I've been in Chicago
and the Greater Chicago area on
and off ever since I was four years old.
I went to elementary school here. I went to college here.
I've worked my full-time career here
and in that time I've also hopped around.
I've lived in other cities for a bit, uh,
but I always end up back in Chicago.
Uh, people ask me why I keep moving back here.
And one of the main reasons is that Chicago is one
of those few cities in the country
where you truly can't exist without a car.
It's how I've always perceived Chicago.
Uh, it's what I tell people when I talk about
how great Chicago is
and it genuinely devastates me personally that
that may not be the case in just a matter of a few months
unless like our leaders step up
and secure funding for the RTA, uh, in my own life,
I rely on the CTA to get to work.
I take the metric to visit my family in the area, uh,
and I'm always hopping on a random CTA line, uh,
or a bus to get to somewhere to visit friends, uh,
explore a new neighborhood and just live my life.
And right now, the 40% cuts that would um,
happen would just like devastate my own life,
which I mean selfishly I don't want.
Um, but it would be devastating to the city as a whole.
A recent study by Cornell found
that losing public transit can cost 35 billion, uh,
regionally in lost access,
increased congestion and cancel trips.
Uh, and half our CTA bus routes
and multiple rail lines serve transit dependent riders.
Uh, there'd be disproportionate harm to, uh,
low income communities and communities of color in the south
and west sides, uh,
where ridership remained the highest during the pandemic.
Losing transit access
for them would cut off these communities from, uh, jobs,
schools and critical health services.
And in general, so many people in our city's workforce, uh,
rely on transit to get to work.
And, uh, cutting those connections makes Chicago less
competitive for business development and investment.
Um, and I mean, overall there's like a million other
economic, uh, talking points that can be made.
But in the interest of time, I just wanna get
to the main message, which is that, uh, the $770 million,
uh, budget shortfall we're facing would completely devastate
our city and destroy the quality of life for
so many of our residents.
And we do need that immediate action.
There's a ton of urgency around this.
Um, since those cuts are gonna happen in a matter of months,
uh, unless state legislators convene this
summer, uh, to give us funding.
So we really need our city council
to call Governor Pritzker, uh, Senate President Harmon
and House Speaker Welch, uh, and demand the summer session.
The money we need is only 1% of the Illinois state budget,
but without it, we lose so much as a city.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you. Our next speaker is Connor Durkin.
Uh, good morning. Uh, my name is Connor Durkin.
I'm a resident and homeowner in the 36th Ward.
Uh, and I'm here today speak in favor
of Alderman's Conway resolution, uh,
on increasing enforcement of non-smoking laws.
On the CTA, uh, disorderly conduct on the CTA is a big deal,
both for public safety and rider's perception of safety.
Those matter concretely for increasing ridership.
Since the pandemic perceptions of personal safety
and public transit plummeted.
A 2022 RTA survey indicated only 54%
of rider riders surveyed felt personally safe on board down
from about 80% in 2016, that 54% also only includes riders
who are still riding the CTA post pandemic.
As we know, ridership is down significantly.
Post pandemic and evidence from other cities indicates
that many riders have stopped taking transit altogether
because they don't believe systems are safe.
The percentage of pre pandemic riders
who believe the system is safe today is likely much lower,
and that's the number we need to care about if we want
to restore ridership to sustainable levels.
Consistent data-driven enforcement is essential.
Anyone who rides the L regularly,
no smoking is a pretty endemic problem
and it won't be fixed by officers showing up occasionally
to issue tickets, particularly given
how infrequently those tickets are actually paid.
We need visible, consistent enforcement
and police presence at the times and places where disorder
and violence occur most frequently to deter bad behavior
and reassure writers and employees.
We also need better data reporting, uh,
and where incidents are happening, uh,
and better incident reporting options for rider.
We need to ensure we're able
to adequately deploy the right public safety
and police resources to address disorder.
And we can't do that if we don't know where
and when, uh, issues are actually happening.
We also need, uh, excuse me, uh,
we also need better data on incident response, both
to hold officials accountable
and to instill rider confidence
that this problem is actually being addressed.
I've relied on public transit to get to and from work
and get around the city for as long as I've been a Chicagoan
and I'd like to continue doing so with the confidence
that those trips won't be
unsafe and they won't be unpleasant.
This doesn't require new rules, it just requires better
and more regular enforcement
of existing rules informed by data.
Thank you. Our next speaker is Elizabeth. Uh coz
Good morning.
My name is Elizabeth and I live in Edgewater.
Thank you for listening to me today.
I cannot understate how absolutely essential
Chicago's public transportation infrastructure is to me,
my community and the people I love from going to work
to coming home late at night.
We depend every day on safe, reliable buses and trains.
I've been doing my best with the information available
to educate myself as to what the current situation is.
I have read that lawmakers in Springfield could still meet
and find a funding solution for transit in 2026.
So I want to do all I can to urge my city council
to pressure lawmakers in Springfield
and do what they must to vote on The funding we desperately
need to slash public transportation
for the 2.7 million citizens
of Chicago seems absolutely unthinkable to me.
And to do it without hardly more than a second thought from
lawmakers in Springfield is honestly offensive.
I've read that the governor of the state is aware of
what needs to be done, but has yet
to bring lawmakers back for a vote.
This makes me even more frustrated that our basic needs
as constituents in this city are
not being taken into account.
I moved to Chicago in 2008 for college
and relied solely on public transit for 10 years
until I got a car in 2018.
This Springfield, my summer, my boyfriend
and I had to sell our car.
So my, we began to rely only on buses and trains again.
Each day my boyfriend takes the 22 Clark Street bus
to the yellow line train
and then another bus to get to work in North Brook
where he's a counselor
for cancer patients and their families.
I alternate between taking the CTA redline
and Metro to get to my office in the loop.
We live near the recently open Bryn Mawr stop,
which looks beautiful.
We are both very worried about
what will happen if the CTA loses nearly half
of its funding in 2026.
Our public transit, a system plays an integral role in the
lives of everyone in this city.
I hope you will step up for all Chicagoans today
for generations to come and make sure it's funded.
In the end. Losing access to public transit hurts all
of us more than can even be measured in dollars.
Whether you ride the trains
or not, their absence will be felt by the presence
of even more cars on the road.
I'm sure we all remember the days this year when the air
quality was so bad you did not wanna go outside.
One way to improve air quality,
reduce toxic fumes in the atmosphere
and cut down on car traffic is providing funding
for public transportation.
This is easy math.
I also think it is worth mentioning
that I have seen hardly any information about this lack
of funding in publicly available locations.
No flyers and stations or any place transit users are.
Many newspaper articles are behind a paywall.
There may be a sentiment in the Chicago's infrastructure is
expendable, and that is why we need to pressure Springfield.
Please consider how devastating cutting nearly
half of our budget will be.
Transit budget will be for the future of Chicago.
And then do what you need to bring Springfield for a vote.
If you do not, when a girl is waiting in the cold for a bus
that never comes, she will certainly be thinking of you.
Thank you. Our next speaker is LA uh, Laka. Uh, salt.
Salt Salton.
Sorry. I know my handwriting is terrible. Yeah.
Um, my name is Laura Saltzman.
I am the Senior Transportation Policy Analyst at Access
for Access Living Chicago Center for DIS Independent Living
and a disability justice organization.
In the waning days of disability pride month,
it is incumbent upon me both professionally
and as a disabled person who relies on CTA together round
to note CTAs commitment to accessibility.
Four renovated rail,
fully accessible rail stations opened just last week.
There is still work to be done.
25% of stations do not have elevators
and accommodation needs go far beyond that,
however, we appreciate that CTA has continued to run ahead
of similarly old legacy STA systems like New York City
because of choices made by former President Carter
and now acting President Rson in prioritizing accessibility
and understanding that disabled people are human beings
who deserve to access public services
but with public funds for the public good.
And that this is also federally mandated though CTA makes a
point to understand a legal minimum is a floor
and not the ceiling for where the system should be
still transit is essential
and like all agencies is deserving
of critiques and oversight.
And on that note, while at this quarterly hearing for CTA,
I would like to flag, we do not see this level
of scrutiny paid to other forms of transportation,
housing, or shelters.
CTA has asap And while I can quibble with the timeline
and note we must go beyond it, they at least have a plan
for making the system accessible.
The department of housing CHA
and CDO CDOT cannot say the same
as Alderman LaSpada has previously noted.
Chicago continues to go without the a DA transition plan
that has been federally mandated for decades.
I talked to too many people who would love
to use their accessible train station or bus,
but can't get there because the sidewalk
to get there is inaccessible or non-existent.
And a few options of where to live
because Chicago has failed, failed to ensure
that either its shelters
or its housing built with federal funds
are up to a DA standards.
Prior to the recent funding shelter announcement,
which we are grateful for,
there were fewer than 10 fully
accessible shelter beds in the city.
To my knowledge, as of a year ago, there were three
finally and back to transit.
I hope alders understand
that we will have no positive changes
and rollback of the many improvements we have seen over the
last several months under acting President Lyon without FI
seeing the fiscal cliff.
And while that may be mostly the responsibility
of the state, you're going
to hear about it from residents if there are 40% service
cuts in CTA metro and paces.
And so I encourage you to do whatever possible
to make sure this doesn't happen,
which includes communicating
that we cannot efficiency our way out of it.
CTA needs funds the same
as transit agencies across the country.
The state is not taking this sufficiently seriously.
I hope you do and work to inform your residents that
what will happen if the state does not act.
Thank you. Next speaker is Erica Celine.
Good morning. My name's Erica Salem.
I'm with the Respiratory Health Association
where we focus on healthy lungs and clean air.
I'm also a former deputy at the city public health
department where I oversaw the policy teams
and the tobacco teams.
So I wanna share some numbers with you.
225,000 adults
and about a hundred thousand Chicago children
are living with asthma.
About 13,000 asthma related visits
to Chicago emergency rooms happen every year.
14 million. That's the number of CTA rides taken to school
by K to 12 and college students each year.
That's 14 million potential exposures
to secondhand smoke to young people.
3,300 bus drivers worked for the CTA in 2023.
These drivers already have higher rates of lung disease due
to their regular exposure to diesel exhaust
and 4,000, that's the number of chemicals
that can be found in secondhand smoke chemicals
that cause the airways
to narrow an inflamed respiratory illness.
Secondhand smoke and vaping aerosols are known
triggers for asthma attacks.
Studies find that people exposed
to secondhand smoke while using public transit
report more frequent, um, respiratory symptoms
and require greater medication use.
And we know that smoke-free laws,
including public transit bans, can reduce asthma symptoms
and decrease hospital visits,
but only when the laws are enforced.
The mayor recently stated that ticketing hasn't worked.
Ticketing works fine. The problem is collection.
So a few more numbers, $300, that's the minimum fine
for smoking and vaping on the CTA
4,400 tickets issued in 2021,
but just 200 were paid.
63 citations issued to writers in 2023,
only 10% were paid.
That's $1.7 million that in lost revenue just
for those two years money.
The cities in dire need of without follow
through on collections, citations are meaningless
and certainly aren't gonna defer future smoking and vaping.
I also wanna comment briefly on the idea
of placing social workers at CTA stops.
The mayor has committed to expanding mental health services.
You can't do that by placing social workers,
mental health clinicians at CTA stops to address smoking
and vaping among a population for that.
The most part is not mentally ill.
As a 40 year public health professional,
there's one thing I know to be true.
Interventions of any type are more likely
to be successful when developed in partnership with others.
Committed to a common goal that includes Alderman Conway
who introduced the resolution today and Alderman Vasquez
and others who stood with him at a recent press conference.
Identify the hotspots where violations are great
and develop data informed strategies.
This Issue is too important to stop it,
just a resolution and too important not
to be strategic in addressing.
Thank you. Our next public speaker is Tex Washington.
Good morning everyone.
Um, unfortunately, um,
CTA doesn't affect me in my daily life.
I am fortunate enough to have a automobile for now.
But think about the, uh, workers
who can't afford a car they have to get to and from work.
They have to pick their children up from school.
Okay, um, so CTA is fundamental to the city of Chicago
and I wish you guys would keep the funding going.
You want to build a better Chicago?
Let's build a better CTA for the working class people
who need it so much.
Uh, thank you.
Next public com. Um, next public speaker is Alex Perez.
Good morning everyone. Uh, my name is Alex Perez.
I am an advocacy manager
with the Active Transportation Alliance.
Born and raised in the city of Chicago.
Avid, uh, CTA rider
and I'm pretty sure like many of us behind here,
we all probably took public transit
because we support public transit
and wanna continue to have a quality public
transit system in our city.
And on behalf of the Active Transportation Alliance
and the thousands of members
and supporters, thank you for taking the time
to focus on this critical role
that transit plays in our city.
As you know, um, our trans, our state leaders continue
to work towards a sustainable solution
to fully fund our transit system, including the CTA
as we face, uh, unprecedented funding and governance crisis.
Governance crisis. We thank you for the resolution.
This committee passed in support of, uh, transit funding
and reform earlier this year,
and ask you to join us in continuing to advocate members
of the Illinois General Assembly to take swift action
to provide the necessary resources, the CTA pays
and metro need, uh, to keep continue running in our region.
In the meantime, we urged the city
and CTA to do everything they can to avoid service cuts
and include, uh, spending all remaining COVID relief dollars
on transit without action or transit.
Agencies will be forced to take devastating cuts
that would slash 40% of trains
and buses enter under service to discount
to pass residents in each
and every one of wards would face, um, hardship.
Longer waiting times probably switch to cars,
which is something we don't wanna see in the city.
Uh, just imagine being unable
or being late to work school,
the medical appointments constantly
because you have to wait for the next bus to come.
Um, we really need your leader leadership at this moment,
even in the midst of a crisis.
It's important for us to remember not only the risk
and harm of or, uh, by these cuts,
but also the transformative impact
and increased investment in transit
can do and will have in our life.
And indeed, despite the looming fiscal, uh, shortfall,
CTA has been given us a taste of
what is expected if we fund, uh,
transit at the level it deserves.
Rail stations are being improved throughout the system,
including the recent opening
of the foreign stations on the red line.
Uh, the CTAs frequent bus network is delivering faster
and more reliable bus service
and our most important bus routes.
Uh, CTAs piloting new approaches to public safety.
We can see so many more exciting government, uh,
improvements like this in Chicago if Transit has
the funding for it.
Uh, because despite, oh wait, Chicago is, uh, woefully
behind, uh, peer cities.
And when it comes to speeding up us, uh, service,
we wanna make sure that we are, uh,
being a world cast leader in that.
Um, despite years of planning and studies, CTA
and CDOs Better Streets
for Buses Plan has made little progress as the body
that will oversee cdot, we encourage you to remain.
Uh, remember that this is agency's leadership and bus lane
and other trans infrastructures essential for us
to be a world class city, um, active transportation alliance
and our partners, uh,
in the Transportation Equity Network have been hosting
Transit Town halls.
Please work with us, uh, to have world class transit.
Thank you.
Our next speaker is Mia Anderson.
Good morning everyone. My name is Mia Fr Anderson
and I'm a longtime volunteer
with the Respiratory Health Association
and a rising junior at the Illinois Institute
of Technology here in Chicago.
I'm here today to talk about my experience
with smoking on the CTA.
As somebody with asthma,
I use our public transportation system almost every day,
specifically the green and brown lines,
although not allowed many people smoke on the train,
it's something that I encounter almost every single day.
When I take the CTA most days, I just take my inhaler
before riding the trains as an extra precaution
because of the amount of smoke I encounter.
I also find myself having
to switch train cars to get away from the smoke.
A lot of the time the CTA is already supposed
to be smoke free, but it is not enforced at all.
Part of the reason I chose to stay in Chicago for college is
because of the easy access to public transportation
and ability to get almost anywhere throughout
the city by utilizing it.
The amount of smoking on public transportation here often
puts me and countless others at risk,
especially those with lung health conditions.
The CTA should be safe for everyone to utilize.
We should not have to worry about having breathing problems
just to use public transportation.
Thank you. Our next speaker is Sarah Chape.
Hello, chairman Mitchell, members of the committee,
president Rson.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.
My name is Sarah Chappy.
I work at the Hilton Chicago
and I'm a proud member of Unite Here, local one.
Um, I'm here to express my union strong support
for Alderman Conway's proposed ordinance
to snuff out the smoking across the CTA
hospitality workers like me, we depend on the CTA many
of us work downtown,
so the public transit is usually an easier
and more affordable option than driving.
I ride the train to work
or the bus to work every single day.
And hospitalities,
or sorry, hospitality workers used to have
to breathe in secondhand smoke at work.
But since 2008,
the indoor smoking bans have finally
made our workplace safer.
But it's not right that we still have
to deal with it on the train.
We're glad to see the city leaders taking this issue
seriously, and we want to remind the committee
that the workers who power our city's hospitality in need,
safe, clean, and reliable public transit.
Thank you. Our next speaker is Cyrus DLA
DLA Soci
work.
Hello, I'm Sahi, uh,
born and raised in Hyde Park.
I lived in Alderman Ward, now I'm in 32nd Ward
ridden the CTA all my life.
And, um, just here to
say the same thing everybody else is saying that we, uh,
would really appreciate your support in
persuading the state legislature to call a summer session
and pass a bill funding public transportation,
in my opinion, not just the, you know, budget gap,
but I would love to see it expanded.
I just had friends from college in town this weekend.
We took the CTA,
I picked them up on the blue line from O'Hare.
We took the CTA to the beach to the, like, we went
to a street fest, a farmer's market to Andersonville
to catch the neo futurist, and it was really cool.
They're from small towns in California and Georgia.
For them to see the diversity that is so
beautiful in our city, I think, um,
I have family in, I have a really big family in Europe
and in the Middle East,
and I've been fortunate enough to be able
to visit them all of my life.
I know, as we all know in this room,
that when public transportation is fast, frequent,
reliable, clean and safe, people use it.
So please help us to advocate for bringing
that to Chicago.
Thank you. Our, our final speaker is Dr. Chloe Groom.
Good afternoon everyone. My name is Dr.
Chloe Groom and I'm here to speak in support
of Alderman Conway's resolution to end smoking on the CTA
smoking on its own is not a violent act,
but it is deeply antisocial behavior that contributes
to passengers not feeling safe.
There have been incidents
where smokers have actually attacked people asking them
to stop speaking.
For myself, I am not comfortable trying
to confront someone smoking on a train.
Also, from my personal experience, I would say
that I get onto a train car with someone smoking
maybe about a quarter of the time.
I'm sure on other parts of the system it might be closer
to 50% if not worse.
Of course, this is just my personal anecdotal experience.
Real data about the prevalence of smoking
is hazy because the CTA does not have a meaningful way
to report or track this behavior,
or at least if this data does exist, it is not transparent
or easily accessible to the public.
Effective interventions need good data,
otherwise, how will we know if we have succeeded?
The CTA needs to know
where violations are occurring the most so
that the system can prioritize enforcement in those areas
and determine how successful those strategies are.
Rigorous peer reviewed research has found that hot spot
policing led to a 24% reduction in violence compared
to business as usual policing.
I wish the system had infinite resources,
but since we're all here today, it clearly doesn't,
and at the very least,
having better data collection will ensure that we are acting
as efficiently and effectively as possible.
For a start, the CTA should require non-police responders,
such as transit ambassadors
and private security to track their engagements
and report that data publicly.
Many transit agencies across the country already do this,
such as BART Transit ambassadors in the Bay Area.
The CTA also needs a functioning emergency text line.
The CTA chat bot is better than nothing,
but it's difficult to find, even for me
and I have a PhD, so imagine a grandmother trying
to navigate that who has English as a second language?
The chat bot also depends on your phone having wifi,
which is dicey at best when you're underground,
a text hotline that's advertised on every train car is
simple for everyone to use.
It could also enable riders to share locations
and pictures directly with transit police to bring up bart.
Again, they already have this tool
and launched it more than a decade ago.
Let's get with the times and get more data for better, safer
and smoke-free CTA.
Thank you. All right,
that concludes our public comment period.
So today we have two items on the agenda.
The first item, page two, item one,
is a call on Chicago Transit Authority Board
resolution (202) 500-1853.
It's a call on the Chicago Transit Authority Board
to increase enforcement of the non-smoking ordinance
and to install a new CTA President
with public transit experience.
So as member William Conway,
alderman Conway is the sponsor of this ordinance.
I will have him, uh, speak first on it
and I will call on members
for question the order of the roll call.
Thank you Mr. Chairman. You know,
sometimes government problems are complicated,
but sometimes the fix is simple
and cracking down on smoking on the
CTA is one of those fixes.
Hundreds of thousands of people rely on the CTA every
commuters tourists, and nearly 68,000 K through 12 students.
For many kids, it is their school bus.
In fact, I was one of those kids.
I took the 1 51 Sheridan to school every day growing up.
One sec. Oh, I got,
okay. I was just getting warmed up
Too. Oh, I know you were.
No, you were, I was one of
Those. I was that
Kid. You can't handle the
truth. You do.
You wanna start over or you when he gets ready. Okay.
Okay, okay. Okay.
All right. Well do the technical difficulties.
I'm gonna recess until they give us notice that it, that,
uh, it's things are working.
Again,
we're back in session.
Thank you for your patience. All right.
Ottoman Conway, you can, uh, I,
I suggest you just start, start. Yeah.
No, no. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman.
Sometimes government problems are complicated,
but sometimes the fix is simple
and cracking down on smoking in the
CTA is one of those fixes.
Hundreds of thousands
of people ride the CTA every day commuters, tourists,
and nearly 68,000 K through 12 students.
For many students and many kids, it is their school bus.
In fact, I was one of those kids.
I took the 1 51 Sheridan to school every day growing up.
And it was clean, it was safe and it was reliable.
And that is how public transit should feel.
But today, when trained doors open riders are often
met with clouds of smoke.
Riders have told us in the RTA
that smoking is their top complaint.
The system feels broken
and we're going in the wrong direction.
Other cities have figured this out
and Chicago can too with leadership and a will to act.
Now, per ABC seven news from 2023 to 2024,
there was a 36% drop in citations issued for smoking.
We're seeing fewer citations even as complaints remain high.
What message does this send to riders?
We have laws, we just don't enforce them.
And that failure puts people, especially kids, seniors,
and those with asthma in harm's way.
Now, I introduced this resolution in, in, in June,
and appreciate that it'll, an overwhelming majority
of city council signed on,
and you may have heard that earlier this month.
The mayor introduced an effort of his own on this issue
that plans to use social workers community meetings
and a PR campaign to combat this issue.
But frankly, without data-driven enforcement, the kind
of majority of, of, of us in, uh, called
for last month in this resolution.
And also as discussed by Mr. Durkin and Dr.
Groom in, in public comments,
if we don't have data-driven enforcement,
this public health issue will continue to harm riders.
If we're going to get a handle on smoking,
we need collaboration between units of government
and law enforcement
so we can target hotspots at times when
smoking happens most.
Now my office hears about smoking on trains every single
day, as I'm sure all of yours do as well.
And this isn't just about public health, it's about quality
of life for commuters, for visitors,
for the senior heading to a doctor's appointment
and for the kid coming heading to school.
Now during public comment, we heard from, from Ms.
Salem at the Respiratory Health Association, as well as, uh,
Ms. Rich Anderson, a student with asthma
and other advocates who spoke up on the health concerns
that smoking causes on the CTA
now taking real steps
to snuff out smoking will make our system healthier,
safer, and more reliable.
It'll boost ridership, it'll boost revenue,
and it'll show people that public transit in
Chicago still works.
Now, something I I really do want
to tell you I appreciate is after we signed this resolution
or introduce this resolution, uh, acting CTA, uh, CEO,
Nora Rson, who's of course here with us today,
contacted my office
and I appreciate that she's come here today to discuss
what steps are being taken
or not taken to address this important quality
of life issue in addition to other, uh,
CTA opportunities and, and concerns.
So thank you. But in the meantime,
I'd ask we we vote in support of this resolution to get
after smoking on the CTA.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you Honor Conway.
Um, well to that end, can I get a motion from Altman Harris
to record approval of this item on the motion?
And all in favor say aye. Those opposed?
No, independent of the chair. The ayes have it.
No, I know you have an opportunity to speak
Later. Okay.
All right. Moving right along now for the meat
of the committee meeting, page two, item two, hearing
regarding Chicago Transit Authority substitute Ordinance
2 0 2 3 0 0 0 4 0 7 8.
Today we have, uh, acting president Nora Lyon here.
Um, she's, she has a, uh, opening statement
and um, I, subsequent to the opening statement,
I will call on members of the committee in the order
of the roll call and then non-members starting with,
uh, chairman la spot.
He, so if he has the comments.
So with that said, I, I turn it over
to you. Uh, president Larsen,
Thank you so much.
Good morning Chairman Mitchell, members of the committee
and other attendees here this morning.
It's an absolute pleasure to be with you here today.
This is an incredibly significant time
for the Chicago Transit Authority
and for the public transit industry overall.
So I welcome with gratitude the
opportunity to engage with you here.
Since it is the first time I'm appearing
before you as a committee,
I'll take a moment to introduce myself.
I'm Nora Rson, acting president
of the Chicago Transit Authority.
I've worked at the CTA in various roles across departments
at the agency over the past decade.
I am deeply and personally passionate about the success
of the CTAI ride the CTA daily multiple times a day
in the past 12 months.
For example, I've taken over 450 rides on the CTA,
traveling across the system on both buses
and trains at various times of day.
I consider its stations, its vehicles
and other work locations as an extension of my home
and office, and I see it's over 11,000 employees
as my partners in delivering for Chicago.
I'm also a trained attorney, former public school teacher
and historian of Chicago's public policy,
which means I know deeply the gravity of this moment
for CTA and for our city.
As a CTA veteran who closely follows your concerns
and issues, I'm aware of many of the key questions
that are front and center for you today.
So let me begin with a few key updates
regarding our workforce service delivery and ridership.
We're all aware of the focus on hiring
and workforce levels over the past few years
and today I'm incredibly proud to report
that we have hired over 5,000 people in the past two years.
In fact, today we actually have more bus operators than we
had before the pandemic and significantly more.
In fact, 848 more than we had in the depths
of the pandemic in 2022 for rail staffing.
We're at 95% of pre pandemic levels
and growing this massive hiring effort
and the expertise of our staff means
that there has been a dramatic improvement in the quality
of service delivery in the recent past
and even more potently since early in 2025.
This new strength of our agency is best exhibited
by the rollout of new added service in the frequent bus
network, which launched in March.
Under this in Initiative 20 routes throughout our service
area will receive 10 minutes
or better frequency from early morning into the evening.
This is a huge step in service delivery for CTA
as over 2.3 million people live within a half mile
of these routes and we see the effects
of this strong service in our ridership numbers.
In the last two months, CTA has reached its highest levels
of ridership In years.
We are consistently carrying more than 1 million people a
day and hitting that number
with irregularity we have not seen
since before the pandemic.
Our incredibly strong ridership
for Chicago's many special events is an indicator of
how while many people's travel patterns remain altered from
before, the pandemic riders are back on the system
and growing more and more each day.
When you look at growth in ridership over the past three
months, CTA is outpacing our peers in LA, Boston
and New York in terms of pace
of growth in this period from last year.
The bus frequent network routes are proving out the fact
that when you add service ridership will follow
routes like the J 14
or the number 60 Blue Island are seeing upwards
of 20% ridership growth when compared to last year.
So let's just say this is not the time
to stop this momentum, and I raised this point
because I know that top of mind for all of us
as indicated in our public comment today, is CTAs fiscal
situation like transit agencies across the country,
CTA is facing a budget gap beginning in 2026 when federal
COVID relief funds run out
and we're working with state legislators
to implement a solution that sets CTA on a course
to not just survive but thrive.
As you know, a legislative solution has not
yet been signed into law,
and this means the budget process run every year
by the regional Transportation authority
is moving forward without those necessary
funds yet identified.
As of today, the RTA is finalizing various figures which
will inform our final identified
needed budget gap in 2026 and beyond.
But to put it plain and simply,
public transit in our region needs to be funded
or we will face drastic service cuts at CTA.
We are actively planning
for several potential scenarios that could come about.
These are stark and sobering analyses for us to see,
and the economic and social impact
that cuts could have on our city
and our region are staggering.
And while this time is challenging,
what we have seen across all levels of government
and community groups is an ever mounting unprecedented
advocacy for the value of public transit.
My philosophy and approach to this is to use this time
as one to bridge bonds across all of us to envision
and implement a CTA that carries our city into a flourishing
and vibrant future.
I know we can get there. It's no secret that
absolutely vital to C CTAs success is trust
and confidence in the leadership of this agency.
For this reason, it's critical that I lead with a vision
and a north star for the agency.
I plan to share this with you today
and use it as a framework
to provide an update on new unprecedented
initiatives I've put into place.
My vision for CTA is
that we deliver state-of-the-art transit service
that is reliable, frequent, safe, and welcoming for all.
To accomplish this at CTA, this means we are guided
by the principles of being performance-focused,
people-driven, driven, centered in welcoming places,
and rooted in dynamic partnerships.
First, being performance focused means that at CTA,
we always are driven by
how well we are executing on our core mission,
which is the delivery of reliable
and frequent bus and rail service.
For me, this means we are absolutely driven,
but that we hold ourselves to a high standard
of using data in a manner
that is always focused on the impact to our riders.
Anybody can use a program to pull up a fancy looking chart
and God knows we have a ton of data at CTA to make charts
with, but my approach has been
to make sure we are always evolving our data
to tell us a real story about the impact
on the people we serve.
And we are empowering our staff to make changes
to improve the rider's experience based on that information.
For example, we rigorously review service delivery on a
daily basis, both internally
and externally via our public public performance dashboard.
There we see the impact of improved workforce numbers
that I mentioned through takeaways like very significant
drops in customer complaints
regarding service delivery since the start
of 2025 when compared with last year.
And my philosophy is that
with initiatives like the frequent bus network,
the announcement of service additions is just the start.
In order to successfully execute on improved service
delivery, we must actively engage with that service
that's done by deploying hardworking supervisors in the
field to monitor service delivery in real time
to ensure it is being delivered in accordance
with our commitment to riders.
That work is paying off
as we are tracking the frequent network closely
and are consistently reaching over 90%
reliability for that service.
Being performance focused also means diving into
where we are not meeting the mark
and not shying away from those conversations.
For example, after years of tracking hiring
to support service delivery
with our personnel numbers now strong, as I mentioned,
when we dig in now to see the cause
of the impacts on service,
the primary drivers are very clear.
CTAs, aging vehicle fleet, our aging infrastructure
and the management of various customer disturbances are
contributing to delays on the system.
What that tells me as the agency's leader is a few things
I need to aggressively seek funding at all levels
to improve the state of our assets
and focus attention on strategic
maintenance of the assets we have.
This also means that when we talk about things like
deploying security resources on the system, that goes
beyond addressing the sense of safety on CTA,
which is absolutely paramount.
It also means that CTA service runs more smoothly
and effectively as we minimize disruptions on the system
with regards to asset maintenance.
Of particular note is the attention to reducing the number
of slow zones on CTA,
which I know people follow very closely.
These are areas of our rail system where trains are required
to go at greatly reduced speeds for safety reasons
like all older train systems.
Our aging track infrastructure means we face these
circumstances and it can negatively affect service delivery.
I'm happy to report that while the amount
of slow zones peaked at 30% of the system at the beginning
of this year, after significant efforts across our teams
and other factors, the percentage has been greatly reduced
to 18% of the system as of last month.
This is welcome news as we continue to work diligently
to maintain our tracks.
We simultaneously will pursue funding for this work
through important initiatives like the Connect two 90
project, which aims in part
to address slow zones on the blue line on the west side,
where a large percentage
of our slower speed restrictions are in place.
And I know riders feel it.
Being people driven means I am intensely focused on the
dynamic experiences of the people who work for this agency
and the people we serve.
This starts first with our workforce.
Since assuming this role, I have made it a point
to visit every one of CTAs, seven bus garages,
nine rail terminals, as well
as our infrastructure and maintenance shops.
I've gone out to see employees working the night shifts on
our red and blue lines to thank them
for their tireless dedication to this agency.
In addition to talking with employees on my daily rides,
I've spoken with hundreds
of them about their experience at CTA
and I leave every exchange with valuable information
to inform my decisions as their leader.
Everything we accomplish at CTA is
because of the work of the thousands
of employees making it happen,
and I need to know that they know they are top of mind.
For me, that aggressive hiring I mentioned earlier is
incredible, but what it also means is
that we have a workforce where more than half
of our 11,000 employees have less than two years of service.
This is unprecedented for CTA
and it's absolutely critical to CTAs future
that we stay connected as a family
of employees with a shared mission.
And I know that starts at the very top in an effort to build
that sense of community within and outside our agency.
I've launched CTAs first ever podcast, moving experiences,
stories of the CTA,
which is uniquely focused on celebrating CTA,
including our employees.
It's exciting that we have over 2300 streams
and downloads since the launch of the podcast
and employees in the field mention it to me all the time.
Episodes featured interviews with key female leadership
as part of Women's History Month,
and then powerful stories from our nationally recognized
second chance program during second chance month.
This focus on people including our riders, has led
to our initiation of a rider engagement initiative called
CTA Chats in which CTA management
and staff hold pop-up events throughout the system.
Over the course of June
and July, CTA has held 19 events on the system,
reaching over 2000 riders and obtaining over 1000 comments
and hundreds of survey responses beyond the actual numbers.
These events are a symbol
that CTA is connecting more than ever
with the people we serve to inform everything we do.
I also believe CTA must be people driven
through a very intentional
and targeted deployment of our resources.
Perhaps most notably
through the security staff on the system, every single rider
and employee should feel safe on CTA.
A key initiative on this front is the strategic deployment
of CTAs Canine security guards in partnership
with CT CPD on the Red Line overnight every night,
seven days a week, which began in March.
Under my direction. We are seeing positive trends from this
effort with a reduction of incidents on the red line
overnight, as well
as good feedback from employees on the effort.
This focus on targeted deployments of resources has also led
to specific mission-based activity in partnership
with the Chicago Police Department.
Specifically CTAs partnership
with CPD has resulted in the police conducting safety
outreach missions regularly on CTA in which officers
interact with customers to offer support
and guidance on traveling safely on CTA.
This is in addition to code
of conduct missions on the blue line
and the anti-smoking missions, which began in March
and which are targeted at one of the top complaints
of riders, which is regarding smoking.
And I know is a key topic here today,
so I will provide some information on that in these remarks.
I agree with what everyone has said here
regarding the importance of addressing smoking on CTA
and one of my first initial acts as leader
of this agency was to focus in on smoking
because as a daily rider I saw it myself
and I wanted riders to know that I knew
what they wanted us to address.
So I welcome the additional interest on this subject.
The anti-smoking missions, which launched in March,
are done in coordination with the Chicago Police Department
and CTA security resources.
They've occurred 24 times to date
and have resulted in the issuance of over 200 citations
for smoking and other violations just as a result
of those missions in these missions, police
and CTA security guards are at a rail station
where they board each train as it stopped at a station
and check for smoking
or any other issue needing to be addressed
very significantly and in line with a lot
of the commentary here today, the locations
for these missions are informed by data, by input
directly from our customers via CTAs chatbot tool on our
website, which we launched last year.
And when I launched these missions, I made a specific call
to riders to actually report smoking through the chatbot so
that we got more information about
where they saw it occurring.
These missions are a part of a larger effort
that's been underway to combat smoking on CTA,
including prerecorded audio messages and stations
and vehicles, no smoking posted signage, as well
as newly created digital messaging.
And I know there's a desire for data, so I wanna walk
through a few numbers here to give you a a sense
of the scale of the activity on this front.
In the past year, CTA has CPD
has issued over 2,800 citations for smoking on CTA.
This is a marked increase from the rate at which tickets
were being issued last year.
At this pace, tickets are being issued at a rate
of nearly 40% higher than 2024.
We know that activity on this issue is starting
to have a positive impact and we're following the data.
Since the start of our missions in March,
we've seen smoking complaints via the chatbot, notably
decrease from a peak of 600 a week
to more about 400 a week via our chatbot.
We don't just follow chatbot complaints.
We also follow 3 1 1
and general customer service complaints as well.
There we're seeing a decrease in the number
of smoking complaints when compared to last year as well.
Specifically, there are 214 fewer smoking complaints issued
via CTA customer service than we saw in the same year
to date period last year.
I know this is a key concern for many
and I welcome further discussion on this
today and moving forward.
Being centered in welcoming places means
that we see our stations
and property as centers of the community
that should be pleasant and welcoming for all
from initiatives like our refresh
and renew program in which stations receive repairs,
maintenance, and upgrades to our plans to soon roll out,
making certain vending spaces available
to community groups and organizations.
I see our spaces
and their neighboring areas as engines of community activity
and on a larger capital investment scale, you only need
to look at the spectacular modernized A
DA accessible stations.
We unveiled last week to see
what Glory CTA spaces can bring.
And speaking of accessibility,
we are in a particularly active year on accessibility news
and proud of it as we broke ground on the Austin Green Line
accessibility project earlier this year,
and we'll open the newly reconstructed racing Blue
Line station last year.
This will all lead up
to the groundbreaking on the upcoming Red Line Extension
project, which is full speed ahead
and will offer four accessible modern stations,
just like the ones we opened
to great celebration on the north side last week.
Finally, being rooted in dynamic partnerships means that CTA
at CTA, our success is rooted in connections
with our city partners.
Our sister agencies are support agencies, transit advocates,
community organizations,
and elected officials at all levels.
My focus has been to deepen existing partnerships
and establish new key connections.
Notably, we partner with the Department of Family
and Support Services for the deployment
of social services on CTA.
We welcome the results we've seen in which we follow
closely, which include so far this year.
In 2025, over 280 individuals enrolled in programs aimed at
finding individuals permanent housing,
and over 300 individuals who have found permanent housing
with social service support a fruitful outcome
of the partnership with The Chicago Police Department is the
recent announcement to their,
of their new expanded strategic Decision support center,
which is dedicated to the CTA
and uses our network of 33,000 cameras in this SDSC room.
CPD resources are dedicated to improving safety on CTA.
And I'm also excited to deepen partnership
and planning around the improvements in street
infrastructure to support bus service.
A key focus of mine as public transit
and bus service enhancements are uniquely positioned
to have a direct impact on our environment
and our public health overall.
In closing, I recognize that some
of our most important partnerships are with all of you.
For that reason, I appreciate the opportunity
to give this update and look forward
to a robust discussion today.
With you. Joining me today are several members
of CTAs management team across various areas
to hear the discussion
and ensure we work as an agency with your feedback
and concerns in mind.
Thank you, chairman.
Thank you. Acting president.
Um, I thought you were gonna go right
into introducing you guys.
So, um, before we get started with questions from the,
from the members, uh, can you please, uh,
introduce your staff?
Sure. Sitting with me today is Jeannie Alexander,
our Vice President of Rail Operations, Hiro Hijo,
our Vice President of Bus operations, Molly Poppy,
our Chief Planning and Innovation Officer, Tom McCone,
our Chief Financial Officer, Veronica Alanise,
our Chief Operating Officer.
Kevin Ryan, vice President of Security.
Steve Mayberry, senior Advisor Strategic Initiatives.
Kim Robinson, our Vice President of Training
and Workforce Development.
Tanisha Marshall, our Vice President of Redline Extension.
Sam Smith, our Vice President of Government
and Community Relations,
and Angelica Alfaro, also in government
and community relations.
All right. Welcome guys. All right.
Well, we will open up questioning to the body.
I would, uh, start with, uh, vice Chair Vasquez.
Is, uh, Vasquez on the, uh,
yeah.
All right. Well, I'll circle back.
Um, going in, in, in order of the role, um, Altman Conway.
Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Um, and, and thank you as well, Ms.
Rson for your, uh, uh,
robust introduction there, um, speech.
So I'll stick with, there's a lot of, a lot of questions
to be asked about CTAI know you're,
you're hitting on a lot just 'cause I spoke on the smoking.
I'm gonna stick to that and I'll leave kind
of the other topics for, for my colleagues.
Um, the, you know, so I had seen on, on
ABC seven the numbers about citations,
and I just wanted to ver any reason
to think those aren't accurate, that it fell significantly
between 23 and 24.
I know that predates your being the top spot,
but is that, did you think those numbers were accurate or
Alderman? I, I'd have to confirm
those exact numbers we're kind
of in the heat of tracking our current numbers
and making sure they're increasing from last year.
And that's what we are noticing.
But we can get back to you to compare those
2 23 and 24. Certainly.
So. Well, if you're comparing it to last year, did it,
did it was the 4,000 number, number of citations
for 2024, was that accurate?
So the numbers I'm familiar with alderman are that year
to date we've issued 2,800 CPD has issued
2,800 citations.
I know what I'm tracking is comparing that
to the same period last year, year to date.
So the first half of 2024, they had issued just over 2100.
Okay. So I was happy to see an increase
and I can certainly provide you
with a breakdown of any other No, that
If you, if you tell me here, here we are in mid-July,
it's 2100, probably 4,000, seems directionally accurate.
Mm-hmm. So that's, um, now you, you also talked about the,
uh, anti-smoking, um, missions.
So when you said there's been 24 of them since March,
issuing 200 citations,
and that seems, you know,
seems like roughly one a week maybe.
Is there any plan in working with, with CPD
to increase that frequency?
Have you found these successful?
If you wanna speak more on that?
We do plan on increasing that frequency.
We, we issue them and we're monitoring their effectiveness.
I think with smoking alderman and,
and everyone that's interested in it, I,
it requires a multifaceted approach
for the missions are one part of what I would hope
to achieve is a cultural shift on CTA around the activity.
So the missions are, are one part of it.
And certainly publicizing those missions
and just letting people know the missions
occur are part of their value.
They're the missions themselves,
but people understanding that we're, we're on this issue,
we're targeting it with CPD.
And certainly you're correct
that it's about weekly that they occur.
Again, I wanna point out that they occur driven by data of
where we see complaints, uh,
because I agree with all the feedback today
that this should be data driven
and based on, on that information,
and absolutely I would look to continue
to increase those missions along with our other activity.
So if that's, if that's about 200 citations, how,
how is enforcement kind of determined on the other 2,600
citations that general patrol, or where do those come from?
That is general patrol.
The police on our system is multifold.
So we have the public transit unit that's part of CPD,
that patrols C the CTA.
In addition, we have our voluntary special employment forces
that come about as a result
of an intergovernmental agreement between CTA and CPD.
And then district police on top of
that are also on CTA regularly.
So those tickets can come from all of those categories.
Right. And, and now the data
regarding these complaints, I mean, does that,
do you guys keep that data, I assume, of complaints
and issued and where and when and when they are issued? We
Do. We look at that
data every day.
It's part of a report that comes through
because we are focused on it.
And I would absolutely welcome further discussion about
making that more public and tracking that more publicly.
You know, we've kind of rolled our sleeves up internally
and, and are looking at the issue,
but I, I'm completely open to making that more public. And
I think that would be welcomed, welcomed
by the public, I suspect after this hearing.
You might get the occasional foyer request for it,
I would guess, but, uh, mm-hmm.
Um, I think at minimum that would certainly be, be helpful,
uh, helpful for people to, folks to see.
Now, there was a, a, a comment
in public comment regarding that it's difficult to
report complaints on the chatbots.
Uh, and I know it's relatively new.
Is there plans to improve that
or how have you found general fee that was just one person?
How have you found feedback to be on that,
or how do you plan to evolve that at all?
Yeah, absolutely. It's a great point.
And we actively think about feedback we get on our chatbot
and how to continuously improve it.
We launched it last year knowing it,
it was not a perfect tool,
but that we needed to make some progress in this area in
terms of giving customers a way
to quickly report information on CTA.
We are always tweaking it. Um, it's always improving.
One of the asks I actually had to the team was
to make it easier through the chat bot
to report a commendation a a positive point of feedback
for our employees, because I think
that's always been a little too tricky to try
to figure out how to, how to do.
And our employees deserve
to hear when people think they've done a good job.
And exactly what that was.
So we've moved up, for example, the, the way that category
where you press on that in the chat bot,
that you can more easily figure out how
to report a commendation of a CTA employee.
That's just one example,
but we actively talk about how to improve the chat bot
and we can also continue to report out
to the public about those, those changes.
Feel free to put that in for Alderman as well, by the way.
But, um, I, the other, the only other thing I would add is
that I, I, you did talk about the canine enforcement.
I know you have added that
and increased that at the, at the Roosevelt stop, which,
uh, chairwoman do.
And I, uh, I share, uh, so I don't speak for her,
but I suspect we, we do appreciate the additional, um,
law enforcement presence there.
Uh, and all, all I would say is as I've appreciated some
of the illumination on things today,
and I hope that, um, as it comes to smoking
and all crime, that it continues to be
done in a data-driven manner.
So we can really get after, after the problems as we exist.
I take you at your words, you're focused on it.
I will also tell you that I,
we still get complaints on it all the time, you know,
and I don't put those on your lap
as you're relatively new in this position.
But, uh, would ask that you, you continue
to continue to work on that.
And I really do wanna AP appreciate you coming here
to this quarterly meeting and being
forthright with this committee.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you. Didn't expect you to be done so soon.
You know, you know, I get this reputation.
I, if you Miss Lyric, come here, given us a lot
of great information and I've
appreciated and answering my questions.
Alright. Um, before I move along, I want
to acknowledge Nonmember
and Al Alderman, uh, Matt Martin, um,
to the, to the, to the room.
Uh, next on, on on next in line will be,
uh, Ottman Jason Irving.
All right. Next is, uh, Ottman Fuentes.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you Madam
President for coming here today.
I appreciate the additional efforts
that you've put into social services, increased safety
and enforcements, uh, of smoking on the CTA.
Uh, I think we're all a little worried about funding, um,
and what it would mean to not have the appropriate,
adequate funding by the state.
Uh, when we have so many constituents across the city
that depend on public transportation to get to work,
to pick up the children, to meet their medical needs.
Can you walk us through what is the financial gap
and where will we see the most impact?
Sure. And I appreciate the question
and the focus on the issue
because I know that particular question
is on people's minds.
So, for an extended period of time, the,
the gap has been identified for the region as $771 million
across CTA and Metro and PACE beginning in 2026.
We are currently in the actual budget process for 2026.
And so the refined gap is being determined
through conversations with the RTA right now
that may shift based on a couple conversations
that are underway and the, the review
of current resources and public funding.
But, and we'll continue to make that number public as it
as it comes to be determined.
But what I wanna be clear about is no matter what
that number is, we have a gap in 2026
that needs to be addressed.
So we will focus in on the specifics of that,
but the re regardless of that, we do not have enough funding
for 2026 as an agency
and we need to work with Springfield to come to a solution.
And where do you see the, the cuts impacting? Is it labor?
Is it the services that you have embedded into the budget?
Where are we sort of gonna see the first iterations
of scaling back based on the gap if we can't get it filled?
Yeah, so service would absolutely be impacted.
Labor and service is by
and large, the large majority of our budget.
We are an, an incredibly efficient organization in terms
of our other overhead administrative costs.
We have the lowest administrative costs compared to all
of our peer agencies.
So we're always lean, always efficient.
So when you look at the level of cuts that
Springfield is considering, it would be labor
and service that would be affected.
Thank you. Can you walk us through
how people here in city council at the municipal level
can support you in the efforts in Springfield?
What do you see to be the most appropriate
support at this moment?
Absolutely, and I appreciate the question
because there's been a few eras of,
of this seeking of funding.
We had hoped for a bill to come by the end
of spring session at the end of May.
And as we all know, it did not pass into law.
So we have entered a different era where the specifics
around the funding
and the discussion of service impacts are now getting more
specific and escalating.
So over the next few months, you'll start
to see more information coming out in terms of
how we are engaging with the public about their service
and how we would have to review that service in order
to consider service cuts.
RTA specifically has asked for the agencies to come up
with two scenarios in their budgets.
The first one would be one in which we meet the need
of our region at a minimal way.
The second one is, if we didn't get funding,
what would the cuts look like at CTA?
We also are adding an additional scenario
because I do not want to forget about the growth scenario
of using this moment to actually expand our service.
So I have directed my staff to make a third version
in which we look at how we expand our service
in the way that we know people need.
And this is complex, this period of, of, of budget
processing here, uh, in, in our staff.
What I would say to all of you is that you will hear from us
as we escalate those conversations
and engage with the public around the impact
of potential service cuts.
We have requirements from the federal level about
how we work with the public when we have
to consider service cuts around hearings,
around input from them, around ridership and impact reviews.
So that's all beginning to get planned out.
Hopefully, we'd never ever have to institute any of this.
Right. And Springfield certainly still has the opportunity
to avoid all of it,
but the conversations will escalate over the next few months
and we'll remain closely communicating with you in a way
that you understand how we'll be engaging
with your constituents and the public about the impacts
to their service potentially.
Can you tell us what's the size of your lobbying team
that you have in Springfield working on this issue?
The exact number? Sam Smith.
I would need you to comment on the, the final number
of lobbyists we on our team,
and we can get you more information on that as well.
Hi, uh, Sam Smith, VP of Government Affairs at CTA.
We have, uh, currently under contract state, uh,
eight lobbying firms.
Eight,
Thank you and President, you may not have this now or,
or Sam, you may not have it,
but I would like it through the chair.
Uh, what are the list of state legislators
that are supporting us in this process?
And then who, who do we need to get across the finish line?
Because we all have state legislators
that represent parts of our ward.
Right? And I think we can utilize this list
to also have some, some meaningful conversations
with our state legislators about
how they can support us in this moment.
And so I'd be interested to see the list of those
that are supporting us
and maybe those that we need
to have further conversations with.
Absolutely. And I appreciate the question.
I I think there is a broad understanding
that public transit is a great value to people,
but certain questions come up that I think would be helpful
for Alderman to also engage
with on the topics as we move forward.
Thank you. Thank you for being here. Madam President.
Thank you, chairman.
I'm sorry. Uh, chairman Dow,
I wanted her to be more specific in that.
Can she share some examples of some questions that come up
that we could be helpful on?
Sure. Thanks Alderwoman for raising the question.
I think there'll be familiar to you.
So when people talk about investing in public transit,
they wanna know the system is safe, reliable, uh, well run
and has strong leadership at the top
and is moving in a good direction.
A lot of my work in Springfield has been
around making sure people know the most recent facts
around CTAs, workforce, our hiring, our commitment
to quality service delivery, our commitment to safe,
welcoming environments.
So to any extent that you can talk about CTA
and what it means to your constituents
and how you think it's being managed
and controlled during this time,
I think would further instill confidence
in investing in the system.
Right. Um, Alman Gutierrez,
I had a question about the budget,
but I think, um, we got the answers.
I just wanna thank you and your team for the great work
that you guys are doing, and we're here
to support in any efforts.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Alderman Harris,
Good morning. Thank you for
being here today.
Um, you gave a round number, you gave the $700 million
for Metro RTA and CTA.
What does your portion look like that you would need to, um,
what's your budget shortfall?
And that's the,
Thank you for asking the question.
The $771 million gap is for the region
CTAs is $600 million of that gap.
That is the most recent number.
16 600 million.
Thank you. That's my question. Uh, I have one comment.
So, so on the southeast side, um,
we've experienced over time, um, bus reductions
because we, we have metro that runs down
through the real east side of the ward that, um,
and runs around my ward, kind of like on the angle,
but all around my war.
But, um, how much
of this cuts would be rail cuts?
How much of the 600 million would be bus cuts?
The specifics of those cuts are,
are still being worked out, but the, the description
that we've given previously is that up to four of eight
of our rail lines would be significantly affected
by this type of cut.
And upwards of 65 to 70 of our bus routes would be affected.
So it would be broad and and sweeping.
Uh, you know, what's getting discussed here
and has been discussed for some long times is a 40% service
cut, which would touch all modes
of our system in a significant way.
But it's good to put the numbers out there that four
to eight rail lines will be cut
or affected in 65 to 70 bus routes mm-hmm.
Will be affected, which would be devastating
to the entire city.
Um, and result in people not being able to move around
as effectively as they've been doing today.
So I think we, I wanna always get down to
where it affects the average everyday person so
that they understand what the cuts are.
Uh, often when we talk in that broad brush stroke,
the 70 million we still, so it's good to know so
that when I'm fighting, uh, for, uh, resources,
that I can explain it how I personally feel
that it would affect my community,
which is basically my community as a bus community.
Absolutely. And, and, and that's exactly
what we're moving towards in this, in this era
of the discussion and why we'll be engaging
with you all in a deeper way to talk about what
that would mean to the people that live in your wards.
Exactly. Thank you. Thank you Chairman.
Right. Um, Derman, uh,
went, did you have a point of clarification or do you want
Just the point of addition? Uh,
no need for a full second round.
The, the piece that I think that would also be helpful
to CTA is to be able to impact the statewide detriment
that we would face if,
if we are not funding CTA in particular,
because I already understand the dynamics in Springfield.
You have, uh, southern counties
or other counties electeds who are like, well,
Chicago's not our problem.
And for many reasons, there's a lot of tension, um,
with our state legislators and Chicago in particular.
Look, if people aren't riding buses or trains in Chicago
and spending their dollars in our business districts
or going to work or producing revenue for our city,
that's gonna impact the entire state.
And so I don't want state legislators to be confused
that if just
because they don't represent Chicago doesn't mean
that they shouldn't support Chicago.
Chicago being successful economically means
that we need a successful transit system
and means that they are also going
to be successful across the state.
And so I think it's worth looking at what are sort
of the numbers as it relates to the production
of revenue in Chicago, how
that supports different municipalities across the state,
and why we need all state legislators
to support this effort, not just the ones
that represent the city of Chicago.
Great point. All right.
Um, alderman Hopkins, I think he's,
uh, alderman Moore.
Alderman Mosley, right.
Alderman Nugent. Derman Rodriguez.
Derman Wa Oh no. And Alderman Yancy him. He was on there.
All right. Moving along to non-members.
Uh, I'll start off with chairman of, uh, PE uh,
Daniel Lada. Ottoman LaSpada.
Thank you very much. Chair, uh, president Le Lisen.
Did I say that right? Yes. Okay, good.
Thank you so much for being with us today.
I, I found your whole opening statement.
I find your energy so refreshing.
Um, your excitement for the system
and for the CTA is palpable.
Um, to know that we have three models, not just two,
one that continues to be aspirational,
growth forward looking like that, that's exciting to me,
that's something that really feels worth fighting for.
Not just preserving what's here,
but thinking about what is the CTA system
that we wanna build, what we want to get towards.
Um, and I say that as a, a frequent rider
and someone who has personally seen the benefit of what you
and your team has been building, particularly on the buses.
Um, which at, at this point in the, the, my professional
and personal and family life, the bus system in Chicago is
how we get around the fact that like when we went
to the dentist yesterday,
we could reliably hop on the 56th Milwaukee to get there.
When my brother was visiting, I was shocked
how quickly from Logan Square we could get
to every major museum we wanted to get to, just on the bus.
Um, and that was fantastic. That was really exciting to me.
Um, I think a lot of the questions related to
smoking have been answered, and I appreciate that.
And knowing how to lean in,
I appreciated learning about the chat bot.
I must admit, uh, Sam, I kind of treat Kat Woodruff
as my chat bot.
Anytime I experience something great on the CTA,
she's the first person that I reaches reach out to.
Um, I, I'll start with
the negative and then I'll move
to the positive and aspirational.
If we should get to the place where
Springfield is not acting expeditiously
on the funding solution that we are looking for,
what would the timeline for service reductions look like?
My understanding is that community meetings have
to proceed service reductions.
When would we expect to see those?
Sure. And I appreciate the question.
I do want to caution that we are in the midst
of a very rigorous budget process right now.
So the specifics of exactly when would be determined
by exactly the numbers that are gonna come out
of the regional transportation authority budget process.
Yes. I wanna be careful not to get ahead of that.
But we know, as I was saying, that the 2026 year has a gap,
which means that through the fall budget process,
if we did not have funding in that process, we would have
to begin those conversations in the fall.
That would escalate moving into 2026 if
a solution was not there.
I appreciate that. Um, I appreciate that.
Um, my second question was related to,
I, I know that there's a movement right now, there is a plan
to electrify the bus fleet by 2040.
And now I admit, uh, as with you, with scenario three,
leaning into the aspirational, I know
that we're already making some progress on that.
I think Alderman Martin
and I were able to connect with your team.
That feels like a lifetime ago
'cause we were on Zoom alderman.
Um, but I was curious if
folks can provide us an update.
Granted a lot of how quickly
that work moves.
I remember from the time it's dependent on federal funding,
they don't seem
to be real champions of public transportation.
Um, but I was curious to hear like the, the progress
that we've been making on those efforts.
Absolutely. That remains our goal
for full electrification by 2040.
The reality is that internationally transit agencies are
facing an issue in terms of production of electric buses
that are slowing down that process.
For all of us, that is not unique to CTA.
So we are working on that front with our partners
to make sure we're looking into every possible way
to increase our electric bus fleet.
But we are facing that obstacle along with our peers.
I would absolutely offer a fuller briefing for you
to get an understanding of the work that's underway.
As you know, as someone familiar with it,
the electrification of a fleet is a, is a complex,
expensive, vast operation.
Uh, that includes a huge investment in charging
infrastructure and locating charging infrastructure
and installing it and the capital investment there.
So we continue to seek out funds for all of
that effort to move it forward.
And we'll continue to keep you updated
and can absolutely dive into the specifics with you further.
I love it. I appreciate it. I, I think I'll,
I would really enjoy that briefing.
Mm-hmm. Um, it's something that I feel passionately about
from a climate perspective and a mission perspective.
But also, my goodness, when you're on a bike behind a bus,
it's not one of my favorite experiences in Chicago.
Um, that said, back to the positive,
I would love to learn more about, um,
better streets for buses.
Mm-hmm. I can say I have directly experienced the benefit
even of the bus only lanes that have been
expanding across Chicago.
I don't know if he's still on,
but, uh, Altman Vasquez, again to Altman Martin,
the way the bus flies on that north stretch of Western
now is outstanding.
The efforts have been well worth it.
The, please know, that First Ward residents experience
that benefit when they take their daughters up
to Wells Park on a regular basis.
Um, but I, I was curious
'cause I know that there's a, a plan, I think it's around,
uh, it's a collaboration with the county on, with CTA,
I believe, uh, focusing on about six different lanes.
Do we know when that, uh, report is expected to come out?
Sure. So thanks for raising that.
I share your enthusiasm
and focus on improving bus infrastructure across our city.
And I will just take a moment.
Certainly EBUS is fundamental
to improving the climate and the environment.
But as someone that's passionate about public transit,
I always have to make the point
that public transit overall is an investment in climate
and, and the environment.
Right. And getting people out of cars
into vehicles on transit is a huge improvement.
Um, it in places I just dove deep,
particularly into Paris and what they've done there.
Wow. In terms of inclu improving climate
and opening up streets for buses and transit.
So, uh, 100% share that, um, the better streets
for buses has identified areas and,
and corridors for treatments, um, and priority corridors.
We continue to work with our partners on that with regards
to the specific county partnership.
Molly, if you want to chime in on the latest there,
Molly Poppy, our Chief Planning
and Innovation Officer can give an update there.
So Cook County is funding part of the Better Streets
for buses, specifically the bus corridor
plan that is underneath that.
So there are five corridors that we are currently studying.
Uh, and Cook County is, is a grant funder of that.
The five corridors are Western, which I know is very near
and dear to many, uh, alders hearts.
Uh, we also have 55th Garfield, uh, Pulaski Fullerton,
and, uh, the number four Cottage Grove.
So all of those are part of the overall study.
And we are working with CDOT on that.
And we anticipate we're gonna start outreach, uh,
hopefully later this year,
early next year with the community.
Uh, and then the final study will come out next summer.
'cause it is a overall sort of infrastructure plan.
It's, it's not just an engagement plan.
It is also reviewing the entire, uh, extent of the corridors
and identifying the appropriate infrastructure investments
that could be made available, uh, on those corridors.
That's fantastic. I, I would hope
and encourage, uh,
ambition on the infrastructure side there.
We're down for it. We very much are.
Um, and I'll just close by saying when, I'm gonna say when,
rather than if that special session happens
to secure the funding that's needed for the health
and thriving of the CTA, please know
that even more than this room, you have people
who are committed to taking the train down with you
and your team to make sure that that effort is successful.
Absolutely. And thank you for being with us today.
Absolutely. Thank you. Thank
You, chair.
Thank you Chairman. Um, chairman Dowell.
Uh, thank you Mr. Chairman.
Uh, president, thank you for being here.
I also want to, uh, underscore
what Alderman Lispa has said about, uh, your, uh, presence
and your statement.
So we appreciate you being here.
Um, I would like the following through the chair.
Um, I'm in and,
and I sent these ahead of time to the committee,
so hopefully, um, I can get them right away.
What investments are planned for the green line, the South,
and I'll add the west legs
and the red line, the south leg over the next five years.
Um, especially concerned about, um, on the green line going
through, uh, Bronzeville, the, I'd like to see it painted,
uh, in addition to whatever kind of other, um,
uh, maintenance requirements are needed.
So like that through the chair. Um,
we were looking to have, uh,
the 43rd Street Green line stop, uh, renovated.
Um, it was scheduled to start in April of this year.
Uh, what is the delay?
Sure. Thank you all.
You can, you can answer these through the chair if you,
if you wanna answer them publicly, that's fine too.
Sure. We'll, we'll give you detailed information
through the chair, but, um, bids did come in
for the 43rd Street Station in a way
that were higher than expected,
but we're finding other sources for that work
and we can update you on it.
Okay. Um, when will the decision be made on the RFP
that was issued for the CTA owned land adjacent
to the Green Line Garfield Station?
The RFP was issued in approximately February of this year.
Yes. And those responses are under review from that RFP
and we will have an update for you soon on that and,
and we can give you more detail on that.
Okay. Um, recently there was a proposal, uh,
for at the 78 for, um,
the Chicago Fire, which is under consideration.
One of the things that I, um, have mentioned
to, uh, some of my colleagues who also share that station
is, um, some kind of improvement or upgrade there.
I know money is gonna be a question,
but is this something that you all have thought about?
Uh, do you have any like, uh, in the draw plans for
updating the Roosevelt station?
I can get you an update on that Alderman, so you,
we know the latest on that
and make sure you know the details.
I know Roosevelt is always a focus
of ours from various different dynamics,
and, uh, I can, I can give you an update on
those specific conversations.
Okay. How often are the CTA train stations cleaned?
So our stations are power washed every two weeks,
uh, by our crews.
Um, certainly janitorial staff is in there every day
cleaning up the stations as well.
I, I know that cleaning is a focus, uh, for people
and I appreciate the question
because we haven't delved into it much here today.
And I know it's on people's minds.
We see a lot alderman also
that when people bring up cleaning, it's related to a lot
of the other issues that have come up today.
Smoking can create a sense of a lack of cleanliness on CTA
unhoused individuals that are on our system in a way
that are vulnerable, uh, can create a situation
where people are concerned about cleanliness.
So I really look at cleanliness from many different facets
that the janitorial crews, the power washing crews,
our refresh and renew work to make sure our stations look
as, as best as possible.
But also all of that work with the people on our system
and the behavior on our system also create a much stronger
sense of cleanliness for our riders.
Okay. And the, when I was speaking of cleanliness,
I'm speaking more about, uh, power washing this, the inside
entrance and the outside sidewalks up at
the train stations.
Yes. Okay. Uh, the JC Deco
contract, is that with you or with cdot?
That's with cdot.
Do you happen to know how long that contract is for?
I do not, but I'm happy to look into it for you. That's,
That's fine.
Uh, fresh and renew, you mentioned.
What are the, um, can you, can I get a list
through the chair of the upcoming Fresh and Renew locations?
Absolutely. We were just about
to make an announcement on that this week.
We're happy to give you those details.
Um, and then lastly, this is, uh, a complaint,
uh, which is coming from a number of my constituents
regarding the unreliability
of the King Drive number three bus
and also the number four Cottage Grove bus.
Uh, specifically the northbound buses
during weekday mornings and afternoons.
Um, uh, these are high ridership quarter corridors,
as you know, and there's concerns about service gaps,
buses arriving significantly late or not showing up at all.
Um, the bus tracker not being accurate, buses
frequently disappear or marked as approaching,
but they never arrive.
Um, this is regarding around the seven 30
to 9:00 AM period and also the four through 6:00 PM period.
Um, and I'm asking
through the chair if you can investigate the cause of these,
uh, persistent, uh, router disruptions
and what needs to happen
to get better real time communication, uh, for riders
that are experiencing delay.
Absolutely. Thank you for all that detail and the concern.
We'll absolutely dive into that.
Those are the exact kinds of issues
that we talk about on a regular basis.
Broadly, we've seen a huge improvement in the issues
around realtime tracking and tracker information
because our bus service is so strong now with the hiring
of our bus operators.
But now we need to dive into the experience
that you're describing to make sure we understand why
and speak with our supervisors in the field about it.
Thank you. I just wanted to bring that to your attention.
Again, I appreciate you being here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you Chairman Dow.
Um,
Lenny Mona Howorth.
Thank, thank you, chair.
I was just clarifying that, that question, um,
about realtime tracking.
'cause I know it's an, uh, a question that chair, uh,
Mike Rodriguez also asked and wanted to know about.
Like, how are we, are, are you committed to, um,
making sure that those schedules are updated and,
and also based on actual, um, operator availability
and equipment capacity.
You know, um, can you speak on that a little bit?
How, how are the upgrades in, in your, um,
including staffing and, and, um,
and the equipment gonna affect the
reliability of those reports?
Absolutely. Uh, and thank you for the question.
You know, I mentioned over the past few years,
and it's no secret
that there were reported issues in great number around
bus tracker and the reliability of the information
that people were getting on the bus tracker.
That was due in large part, almost entirely to the depletion
of our workforce during COVID
and the inconsistent schedules that we had relation
to our labor availability.
Given the massive hiring efforts,
we see really strong bus service delivery, not perfect,
but very strong bus service delivery.
And what we're diving into now is a lot
of the issues when you see impact on bus service delivery,
you're running up into these priorities
that we hear being raised by other members today in terms
of improving our bus street infrastructure.
Um, in the PM rush hour, for example,
when buses are stuck in traffic
and can't flow, you're gonna see the schedule
and the information not be as accurate
as it should be for riders.
And that's part of that commitment to moving forward
with the better streets for buses plan and the,
and the work on there to make sure our buses are
flowing as they should.
And that frankly, we're keeping up
with other cities in this regard.
Uh, we have a lot we need to do in, in this city
to move forward in that realm,
and that will improve the service delivery of our buses.
Uh, with regards to our fleet, um, we work vigorously
to maintain the fleet that we have.
We do have older buses.
Um, and given that aging fleet, we can see an impact.
But that's a lot of the data that we review every day
to make sure that our inspections are at a time they should
be, that they're coming out with the right information
and we're sending buses out into the field
that are gonna perform for our riders.
Thank you. Uh, through the chair, can you provide
the demographics of your, um, your train
and your bus operators?
What percentage are women? I would be interested in that?
I know I remember in, in, uh, previous hearings, we heard
a lot from the, from your workers
and, um, just unsafe conditions.
And so I, I would just like to,
to understand a little bit more about your, um,
about your demographics of your workforce.
And I'm, I'm really impressed by the fact that
you have increased your workforce so much so that,
um, you have 800 plus since COVID.
And, and it, it is also striking to me that almost half
of them, um, have less than two years of experience.
So leadership is absolutely needed right now.
Um, I'm glad to hear that,
that you've gotten less complaints.
Um, uh, I wanna speak just a moment to the,
the smoking issue on the train.
Um, because it, because it is an issue for me as a,
as an ex-smoker
and as, um, someone who is allergic to smoke now,
it does bother me a lot.
Um, so I appreciate all the work that you're doing and,
and what the city is doing around that.
I, I wanna say that it's, it's very difficult to,
to have oversight of that.
Um, as, as somebody who uses the red line quite a bit,
um, to have to confront somebody is very uncomfortable.
And, um, usually the times that I have done it, um,
I say to them something like, Hey,
can you, can you not do that?
And most times people will say to me, everybody is doing it,
so what, what's it to you?
And so, um, I understand that we have to fix, you know,
structures, but also it's really
a cultural problem right now.
And I imagine it's not just here in Chicago,
but everywhere in the nation.
Um, we just need to feel a little bit more a part
of this society and what we can do to make it better.
So I appreciate all the work around there.
Um, there are a couple questions from, again,
from Chair Rodriguez that I wanted to, um, share here.
What are your short-term plans to address widespread
bus and trained ghosting and inconsistent service?
And I know that you spoke about increasing the workforce
capacity, but can you, can you add anything more than
what you've already shared with us today?
Absolutely. Uh, when we dive into the reason
for service impacts, as, as I mentioned earlier
with our workforce back, it, it's,
it may have to do with personnel.
And certainly we still track like every agency absenteeism
or availability of personnel, but we see informing that,
and this is something I've been talking
to Springfield about a lot as well.
Um, it's our aging fleet and aging infrastructure.
And that's a story of a, of a lack of funding, uh,
across the board for transit.
Uh, from a capital sense.
We also see, you know, stark numbers in terms
of disturbances affecting our service.
And that's when there is an issue on the train
with a passenger o of any kind
that may need security attention that affects our service.
And that, that creates a situation where we may have
to stop a train and wait for resources.
So my focus on this deployment of
security resources in a very data informed meaningful way
is also intended to improve service.
And I don't wanna skip over, you know,
the point about safety
and the sense of security that's absolutely paramount
and important for all of our riders,
but we, people may not realize is that the deployment
of police and security helps service run better
because you have resources nearby
because issues can be addressed quickly
and we can keep trains moving.
Uh, so that, that's a big focus of that work.
And the strategic decision support center
that we have launched with Superintendent Snelling
and CPD just a few weeks ago, is a massive step
to using all of our cameras to make sure
that the police are engaged in a very real time way on CTA
and responding to incidents quickly.
So my aim
and hope is that coming at these issues from a multifaceted
approach and continuing to fight for funding
for our aging infrastructure
and fleet, we'll continue
to see those improved service impacts.
Thank you. I appreciate the collaboration that you have
with, with, um, superintendent Snelling.
Um, I, I don't know what the answer is to,
um, young.
I, I won't go there. I, I will say that again.
I've had instances where I'm sitting next to somebody
and they're, they're calling out bad behavior on a train.
And, um, that's in, in addition to what you're doing,
I think that it's incumbent upon us as a, as a city to say
what is acceptable and what is not.
And um, and,
and in the meantime, while we are bringing people in, we,
we have to keep each other safe.
What I'm saying is we all need to do better,
and that includes how we behave on, on the trains.
You know, um, again, I I I, I don't want anybody to get hurt
because we are trying to raise up consciousness of
how you should behave on the trains.
Mm-hmm. Um, um, I wanted to
to also say thank you, um, acting President Laren
for coming to the 48th Ward to help us celebrate, uh,
the four brand new redline stations in Edgewater
and Uptown, fully accessible, beautiful artwork.
And, um, and it does also not only help again,
boost the economic, um, impact of,
of the small business quarters that we have, including Asia
and Argyle and Bryn Mawr and on and on.
Um, and also, uh, provide a better, um,
riding experience to probably a quarter of a million riders
who come from the north side to ride on on the red line
or transfer from the many buses.
Um, but it not only helps us,
but all of the city of Chicago, um,
to help people get to where they need to go.
'cause CTA is a connector in so many different ways.
So, um, I'm glad that you were there to help celebrate
that win for us.
Um, I wanted to say, um,
also I appreciate all the outreach that you have done.
Um, again, I think it's so important for leadership
to be involved, to be on the ground, to be speaking
to people, and also to be talking about the history
of the CTA, where we have been, um, where we are now, so
that we can understand where we need to go.
Um, and I think that, that, that gets lost in, um,
so many things, including the urgency
of funding our public transit system now.
And, um, I think that where there's a big disconnect,
it seems to me right now is how CTA
helps the whole of the state.
And, and to the point of, um, elder Fuentes is how,
how is it that we're working at the in Springfield, um,
how is it that we can help you?
I think that's really important for us
to talk about right now.
I, I was born in Chicago on the south side,
and then we moved to the suburbs to Matson,
and I wanted to go to school in Chicago to an art school.
So I took for many years for high school.
Um, I took Metro and I went to LaSalle Street Station
and I took buses to the west side, west west loop,
um, to go to high school.
And then I took buses like the 1 51
and 36 north to my classes up there,
and then South Jeffrey to, to go to Joel, Joel Hall,
to the north, Joseph Holmes to the south, my dance classes.
Um, and now, um, I think that I,
it's, it's really unclear to, to me, if folks from
outside of the city, um, understand the moment
that we're in right now,
and if CTA is cut,
how they in the suburbs are gonna be affected
by what's happening here, um, in this moment.
So I hope that we're trying to figure out ways
to expand our communications to not only, you know,
every part, every community in Chicago,
but on the outskirts, especially in the collar counties.
Can you speak on that? Like what kind
of work are you doing there to, to help bring in people
to help people understand the impact of, of, of this moment?
Yeah, absolutely. That's front and center.
I mean, and one of the assets of CTA in this discussion is
that we serve 35 suburbs, right?
We, we go beyond the city.
So we are a regional agency,
and that really assists us in conversations
with relevant senators
beyond the city boundaries in terms of the impact.
Uh, the messaging has also been very focused on, yes,
it's kind of the age old discussion
of the city versus the state and,
and the being the economic engine of the state.
But we are in an unprecedented historical moment in terms
of the economic engine that Chicago needs to play
for Illinois moving forward.
And that's been a lot of our focus when we, when we talk
to senators and representatives
and their regions that may not on first blush look directly
impacted by CTA,
but we are all connected in a deeper way than we've ever
been in terms of the next steps.
Also, because of what's happening on the federal level,
I think it's important that we see ourselves as a city
and a state in a new way than we've never had in order to
protect ourselves through uncertain times.
And all of those messages have been what we've been bringing
to representatives and senators and will continue to bring,
Thank you for that.
I wanted to ask you or anyone in the box,
because I'm having, this is very complicated, right?
It's not just CTA, it's, it's, it's regionally
and there are different agencies that,
that we're talking about here.
It's not just CTA, um, I wanted
to understand or can somebody explain to me how,
how does funding CTA impact suburban property taxes?
I can have our chief financial
officer comment on that here.
We could certainly dive deeper into that question as well.
Sure. Uh, I'll, I'll Tom McCone again,
chief financial officer, so,
and I'll, um, give some follow up information as well.
But simply put, um, an acting president Lyon mentioned this.
We, we serve not only the city,
but also the surrounding suburbs as well.
And I think if you travel to a lot of those suburbs,
you will see denser development, higher property values,
and thus higher, uh, revenues from property taxes at a lot
of those, those suburbs.
So if you take for instance, the purple line, right?
You'll go up to two, two different suburbs there.
They're getting a lot of value about the transit system
and the service that that goes there.
I think as you bridge that, you start to look at sort
of the regional service, right?
And how the regional service extends, you know,
into the six county area as well.
Well, a lot of that regional service functions
because of the effective connections that, um,
commuters will have, and you'll see denser development
around those regional connections as well,
denser development, higher property values,
and thus higher tax revenues as well
for those municipalities.
So that's sort of a, a, a short answer of kind of
how it all works and how it all connects.
But without CTA at the core of that, providing that mobility
that's necessary when you are traveling, right,
that starts to fall apart.
And so you start to lose the benefit of
that dense development around those transit stations.
And then obviously the property tax revenue that,
that comes with that as well.
So, happy to follow up with more specifics. Thank,
Thank you. I appreciate that.
It reminds me of Edgewater, um,
because we have a very dense, uh, we are very compact,
um, and also, um, stepped away from the, the red line.
We're basically a transit oriented, um, area,
and so we're working really hard to increase, um,
um, the possibility of more people living around transit,
um, because of the, the investments
that we've made into the, into the red line.
Um, yes, please.
Well, um, you know, we've done studies with,
with Argonne National Labs
and others about the economic value of transit, right?
And when we look at that, we're looking at about $33 billion
in economic generation that public transit creates,
and we're happy to share those studies.
Those are, those are public studies about the value
of transit specifically in our region.
Terrific. I I appreciate that very much.
Um, I think that's, that's the, that's, uh, that is
what we want living in the city
and close to the city, is that we want that compact
livability close to transit, all of our public amenities.
And, um, property owners should feel, um, like,
like there is a possibility
that their property will increase in value
because they're sitting right next to a, a gem of, uh, of,
of, of a public amenity, a public, um,
inc including everything around, um, what makes our city
so great and why people wanna live here, um,
or close to transit at least.
Um, but,
but can you speak on, is there gonna be an actual like
increase in like 600% taxes
to suburban properties,
as some people are saying right now?
Not That I'm because of a CTA bailout,
Not that I'm aware of, right?
Um, I, that is not something
that I saw in the proposed funding.
And obviously this is not just a CTA issue,
this is a regional issue, but I haven't seen that number.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you Again.
I, I just wanna go ahead.
I, I just wanted to echo that doesn't,
that's not a correct number that we've heard, so I,
I I would not, I I think there's a lot of churn
around this conversation,
but that's, that's not an impact that's been conveyed. No,
Thank you.
Um, again, I, I just wanna thank you for, for all the work
that you, you've been doing, um,
in your role in this moment.
Again, Edgewater has seen quite a bit
of disinvestment in the last 20
years because of down zoning.
So we're, we're, we're, again,
Broadway is steps away from the red line and,
and we just wanna remind people of why, uh,
living in the city
or close to transit is of a benefit to individuals
and also public benefit for, you know, the neighborhood
that you live in, the community, the city,
and actually the, the whole of the state of Illinois.
It brings us closer together.
So we want not only CTA to work,
but all of all of our regional partners, um, including PACE
and Metro, um,
and to figure out the funding that's needed now.
Um, and in on the north side with my colleagues,
we are gonna have a transit town hall, um, in, in August,
and we are calling on a special session in Springfield
to address the, the fiscal cliff.
There's, there's, um, there's such an urgency right now,
and I know that, you know, that, um, can,
can you speak more on any kind of timeline
that we should city council should know about, so
that we have it at the foremost of our minds?
Yes. As mentioned, the RTA runs our budget process
for all the agencies,
and we will present our budgets in the fall.
And if funding is not identified by then,
you will see a version of that budget
that identifies the impact of service cuts,
and that will further escalate
and specify the impacts to our service area.
Thank you. Thank you, chair. That's all
Right. Thank you.
Um, re Martin,
Thank you Chair.
I will, uh, try to be as concise as possible
with my questions
and statements given, uh, uh,
the, the length of this hearing.
I appreciate you being here.
Um, as others shared, um, wanted to start off
with a few acknowledgements slash thank yous.
Um, so we extended the number nine Ashland bus, uh,
by a number of miles, which expanded, um, last year, uh,
transit access to I think upwards of 30,000 residents, uh,
in and around the 47th ward.
And it was done in a way that was, uh,
created minimal additional expense.
Um, I know that this is one of a number of extensions
that CTA either has implemented or is considering.
I think these are both common sense ways
to improve transit access to residents
who live in transit deserts, um, in a way
that's cost efficient and would encourage you
and your team to continue to uplift these.
Because as I, I have, uh, a comment subsequently about, um,
the red line extension, which I think is important,
but I, I have some concerns with the cost of that.
Uh, bus extensions are more cost effective, um,
and something that I think we can often do unilaterally
without the state
and especially the federal government stepping in.
So kudos to the team for that rollout.
Um, as Alderman LaSpada mentioned,
there were some improvements that CTA worked collaboratively
with CDOT on when we resurfaced a broad stretch
of Western Avenue that included bus specific improvements.
That has sped up, um, quite significantly, some
of the bus times going north
and southbound on Western, again, common sense ways
to collaborate with other departments to ensure
that we're providing better service with, uh,
minimal additional expense.
'cause we were already redoing a lot of that,
uh, street to begin with.
So the team should definitely keep that up.
Um, also, Molly in the box, Sam in the box,
and Kat Woodruff have been a real pleasure to work with.
Um, there are times where we come to them with complaints
and challenging questions
and they do a good job of working with, uh, my team
and I, um, uh, uh, three observations
and then a very small handful of questions.
One, uh, slow zones generally.
I know that you and I have had an opportunity to speak about
that in the past, and once we deal with the funding cliff,
uh, working with our colleagues in Springfield, I think you
and your team need to turn to that in more earnest way,
talking with the public as well as city council about that.
Um, those are not quicker easy solutions.
Um, you and your team are gonna have to find ways
to collaborate more with other partners,
including at the federal level,
because part of the challenges we have right now is,
of course, it's gonna continue to cost a lot of money just
to maintain the important infrastructure that we have,
putting aside expansions.
And I do worry that with
so many communities increasingly built around, um, frequent
and reliable access to transit,
that seeing slow zones pop up in the ways
that were quite ubiquitous along the blue line,
in particular before improvements went in, that
that's not acceptable.
And we need to find ways as proactively as possible
to both message around those concerns as well
as solicit ideas, um,
before the problem really, um, uh, uh, uh, uh,
it becomes a true crisis.
Um, similarly, I would propose
for the next quarterly hearing that we delve into, uh,
the Red Line extension.
Um, the vast majority of city council was supportive
of establishing a TF to fund that.
Um, I know it's been reported, including in cranes
around some of the costs associated with that,
that have caused, uh, overruns.
And while I think that it's fine to have explanations
for why costs have increased, um, I think
that ultimately we do a disservice when we allow stuff like
that to happen because it leaves a lot of people,
especially people who aren't frequently consuming
information, that government is not being efficient
and effective with the resources that we have,
especially when we went through a large planning process.
And so, to be clear, I support that project moving forward
because we do need to expand access.
My community wouldn't be what it is without the Brown Line.
We've got good bus networks,
but we need that brown line there.
We need the, um, uh, uh, Ravenswood Metro Station.
And I think we need to do a better job of earning
and maintaining the trust of residents as with us with CTA,
with CPS.
Um, we're gonna continue going
to residents in the coming years and decades asking more.
And I think that, um, there were a series of mishaps
that happened there, um,
that hopefully we can get into in
detail at a subsequent hearing.
Um, uh,
and then lastly would be continuing to encourage your team
to work with City Council to share more information about
what your Springfield asks are.
So we can uplift that.
I think historically CTAs worked with the mayor's office on
that and City Council has played, uh, uh, a,
a less prominent role.
Um, I think that needs to change.
I think it can change, and it's always frustrating
to hear whether it's correct
or incorrect from colleagues, uh, at the General Assembly,
that they are not clear on what the asks are from CTA.
Again, I know that there's more to it than that,
but it helps if we get read in on what the asks are.
If you're sending a one pager, a multi pager, two, uh,
leadership members in the general
assembly, send it to us as well.
Just CC that because then I can bring
that up when I'm talking with my state reps and senators
because they right now are hearing much more
from residents than we are.
I want to be a good colleague
and I want to be able to uplift the work that CTA is doing,
working with them to help address this cliff.
Um, so that's what I have by way of, uh, just kind
of opinions and observations.
Um, uh, a few quick questions.
Um, uh, with the fiscal cliff, I'll just ask a two parter.
In the interest of time, have there been any improvements
that have been halted
or rolled back due to the cliff, the impending cliff,
and wanting to make sure that that, uh, is addressed
before we greenlight certain things.
And then relatedly, has the federal government clawed back
or, or threatened any funding for current
or anticipated capital programs
that we need to be mindful of?
Uh, thank you Alderman.
And, um, thank you for your initial commentary as well.
Before I launch into those two specific questions,
I would absolutely welcome a deep dive into the questions
around the Red Line extension process
to make sure people have full confidence in that project
and in, in the money being spent there.
I think it's an important activity, um, that we can continue
to explain to the public the path of the cost there
and where they came from,
and to have us all move on a path forward of confidence
and positivity and being on board with the massive impact
that that project will have on our city.
Uh, you know, it's estimated to create just under $2 billion
of economic development in that area.
People should be excited
and confident in the work that's about to launch,
and I would welcome an opportunity
to dive deeply together on that.
Um, also with regards to Springfield, um,
a hundred percent agree that, uh, the, the ask needs
to be clear, as I mentioned, we're in this
separate new era in terms
of the RTA budget process being underway.
Those numbers will get refined through that process,
and we'll absolutely communicate that to you so
that you feel empowered
to make the calls that you're talking about.
Um, with your questions, um,
with regards to whether we have cut back yet, no.
Uh, this is a 2026 issue.
So although we are spending late hours at night doing
additional work planning around this fiscal cliff, um, this,
our, our agency currently is in, you know, a state assuming
that we are going to have success in getting
funding in 2026.
Now as that inch is closer, we're gonna have to start
to look more closely at being even tighter
and more efficient than we already are,
uh, to prepare for that.
So we are still very much in the planning phase for that.
We're being honest
and real about what could happen if funding doesn't come.
But the impact has not been seen yet in our agency.
In fact, as, as I've talked about,
the frequent bus network has launched this year,
which has added service, which we are very proud of,
and in fact are using that in our conversations
with Springfield to make this exact point
that when you fund transit, ridership follows.
Um, and so we, we wanna show the health of our system,
the strength of our system, the confidence
that people should have in investing in our system.
I said it last week at the Red Purple
to modernization opening, you know,
we stand ready when given the right funding to give you
glorious investment in our city.
Um, so that's the message we're continuing to send
as we plan for scenarios
that we hope never come to fruition.
And your final question was about federal funding.
Federal funding also not impacted at this time?
We follow it closely, uh,
but all of our federal funds are flowing
and none of our agreements are impacted.
Great. Um, and then my last question for right now,
because most of the others have, uh, been asked
and answered, um, is our office, uh,
will occasionally receive complaints around the pattern
of service, degra degradation on holidays, larger events,
uh, fair weather days, poor weather days, um, uh,
what solutions has CTA identified to rectify the at issue
to maintain reliable service that meets CTAs posted, uh,
schedules on those exceptional days?
Yeah, that, that's a key focus of ours and,
and many of my colleagues here will be familiar
with these conversations.
We we're always working on strategies to prepare ahead
of time for holidays where we know
that people may see a personnel drop,
uh, that affects our service.
So we have very extensive campaigns internally to promote
to employees that you're needed on this day to,
to show up for our city.
Um, and we've seen positive effects of that.
Um, and I don't wanna discount, you know,
my broad sweeping discussion there of engaging
with employees that's morale, right?
That that's, uh, faith in our, in our agency
and a commitment to it.
And knowing that your work is seen and heard.
And I feel deeply that that matters in days like that
to having people show up for their service.
But also behind all that, you know, the, the years of hiring
that you have a bench of CTA employees to show up at work,
um, is where you're gonna see that impact.
So I would hope, and, and we'll manage closely,
but you know, those types of impacts are gonna become lesser
and more minimized as we see all
of those efforts have an impact.
That's great. Um, 'cause I know at least
with the Brown Line, a lot of our issues have been
around similar issues involving slow zones.
So just the age of the infrastructure, the age of the cars.
So I know you had mentioned earlier the work
that is underway to both put, uh,
dollar figures on the needs, uh, to address that.
Um, just wanna reiterate how important it is to continue
to uplift that, um, uh, proactively.
And then just lastly, uh, want you to know
how grateful our community is for the work
that the CTA is doing, especially in recent years,
where has been, uh, uh,
very challenging on a number of levels.
And there have been a lot of criticisms
and oftentimes fair
that have levied been levied against prior leadership, um,
and others at CTA.
Um, nevertheless, this is an incredibly important
and vital institution within our city
and would encourage you
and your leadership team to think not just about
how we make things less bad, more tolerable,
as we can finish digging out of the worst of the pandemic,
but help us chart a course for
what we should be excited about.
I think too often we think about things
as being just less bad around issues like transportation,
infrastructure and safety.
We need to have things to feel optimistic about, good about.
And that's part of my point around the Red Line extension.
We're excited about that.
To your point, you know, bringing billions of dollars
of investment to communities that need it should be lauded,
but that will get lost if people hear that.
Uh, it's, you know, uh, many millions, if not upwards
of a billion dollars per mile for five miles stretch,
it's gonna rub some people the wrong way.
And so we want people to feel good to know
that we're gonna do this well,
and then we'll get more buy-in to do it again
and again and again.
And it's gonna continue being a benefit
for not just Chicago, but the broader Chicago land area.
So please continue to think, uh, in an innovative way,
in a bold way, as we also work to, um, lock in the system
as it currently exists.
So thank you and thank you Chair for convening this hearing.
Hi. Thank you Ottoman.
Um, alright, we, I have a couple of questions before,
before we end this meeting,
or one
of the complaints or Yeah.
One of the complaints I get, uh, is about the Jeffrey jump.
Mm-hmm. That's, that's like the most frequently traveled
robust line in my ward.
Mm-hmm. Um, that's one
of the most frequently traveled robust
lines in my, in my ward.
And I've been using that all my life mm-hmm.
Ever since I was five years old, uh, when it was the sixth
and then the 14, and then the jump, um,
just keep an eye on the delays in service gaps.
Um, I get, for some reason I got more complaints about
service gaps or service delays in the south end of the line
as opposed to the north.
So mm-hmm. I don't know what that's about.
I, I think, uh, some members of the staff are aware of,
but just keep an eye on that.
Um, um,
Yeah, absolutely.
Alderman, and this is one of our routes that has got,
is identified in the frequent bus network mm-hmm.
Um, for additional service for this reason. Okay.
And it's one of the ones that we're seeing, you know, some
of the most robust ridership growth on.
Okay. Um, I, I, I'm also familiar with the route
and, uh, personally and some of the delays
and the crowding that could occur.
Uh, so we're excited about what some
of this additional service is gonna bring to that route.
Happy to keep you updated on the specifics in terms
of the region in particular
and how it's impacting your ward.
All right. Thank you for that. Um,
on my Southeast side,
and I hope you've already, uh, you know about it,
we have a proposed development, um, the former USX site is,
is being acquired and there's two huge developments on the
North end, uh, uh,
$300 million hospital from Advocate is building
and on the south end they've been an IQMP campus Quantum,
like a beautiful computer campus.
Um, have one, are you, you familiar with it? Mm-hmm.
Two, have you had any conversation about
what does extending bus routes of creating bus
or transportation to that far south?
Have you had any conversations around that
and what does that look like? So far?
There have been some conversations.
Molly, if you can speak specifically to the latest
so he gets the best information. Thanks.
Yeah, so chairman, we have spoken
with the city a bit about some of the work
that's happening in that area.
We also are looking to plan a very specific planning study
for the southeast side to look at the overall bus service,
uh, that is in that community especially
'cause you also have Obama Presidential Center,
which is obviously, uh,
a little further north than than the side quantum site,
but that whole sort of area seeing
a lot of development growth.
And so we are looking at how we need to think
through the configuration of those bus routes
to better serve those communities.
And one of the things that we're also looking for is
where are the workers gonna live, uh, for Advocate
and for, uh, the site quantum site so
that we can also understand how we can move,
uh, employees into the community.
So it's an active plan, uh, active work and,
and we're planning on,
on doing a planning study starting next year.
Okay. Yeah, definitely keep in mind with that study that,
um, with all the vacant properties over there, we are,
we're getting a big push to, uh, to, uh,
stimulate home ownership, the rebirth of home ownership
and historically of bedroom community.
Um, I hope we don't come to this.
Um, we get the funding we need
and we do not have to entertain cuts,
alterations and service.
But in any event, we we do.
And I, I, you mentioned that you're kind of
considering some things now to be prudent.
Um, one of the things I always try
to get my colleagues on city council to understand
that Chicago is the tale of two cities.
What is good or what, what is good for up north, so,
and is not necessarily had the same
impact on the south side.
Um, so with that said, I'm assuming that
you bus routes
the alteration of service is on the table, would have to be
what I'm, I'm, I'm kind of hesitant to ask you in this way,
but what criteria, I won't ask it
as a question, I'll just make a statement.
I think with my, with, with the sentiment
that Chicago's the tale of two cities
and something that's good
for the north side was necessarily good for the south side,
um, I think ridership would be some one
of the criteria that you would look at.
My community, alderman Harris's community is very aged.
So if you look at ridership it,
it may paint a different picture
and I want that kind of consideration to be made.
Um, yeah, it might be low ridership,
but look at who's writing it might be our seniors.
So therefore to, to make a, make any type of change
that actually impacts it far greater than you can imagine.
Um, and it may be just, it may not be a lot,
but it has a, it has a, has an impact on the community.
So those are the kind
of things I wanna make sure are taken into consideration
because being down here 10 years, I know a lot
of decisions have been made not just in city council on the
city side, but in our agencies that the dynamics
of our wards individually have not been taken into
consideration and it has hurt wards like mine.
Yeah, no, I'm really glad you bring that up
and agree 100%.
Um, this is, you know, at the core of
what we do is understanding our ridership
and going beyond numbers, right?
You're talking about communities that rely on the potential
of a ride as much as the actual ride itself.
Um, you know, I've said a a lot that, you know,
running a bus through a neighborhood is an incredible lever
to pull that you could do just overnight
and completely change the sense of opportunity in
that community for the people there.
Um, and so we take that very seriously.
The review of our service goes beyond just sheer numbers.
Okay. It's gonna go into community engagement
and an understanding of the people we serve
in those communities.
Um, absolutely.
I I will say, you know, there is equity at the center
of this review, but the scale of this impact,
there is an inequitable situation, right.
Pub affecting Trump public transit across
the board to this degree.
There's no equity version of that. Yeah.
Uh, but, but those conversations are gonna absolutely be
informed by the human experience
and the specific communities that we serve,
and we take that very seriously.
Okay. Thank you for that. Um, one other thing I want
to add, uh, we use, uh, we see a lot
of community engagement.
Um, that's also something I want, uh,
there's part of communication I want people to understand.
There's a subset in wards, like-minded of people
that will never come to meetings mm-hmm.
That will never engage. Mm-hmm.
And therefore those people you won't
hear about in those meetings.
Mm-hmm. You won't hear. Uh,
but those are the people that the alderman like myself,
you know, and I taught myself being the son
of the seventh Ward that my seniors,
they call my mother to get to me.
Mm-hmm. And they tell me what they want to see.
So I, I said that to say that when we doing all this, the,
the community engagement, know that
the whole picture is not always gonna be
told in those meetings.
Mm-hmm. Um, in,
Yeah, I, again, completely agree.
Uh, one of the main components, you know,
of this recent initiative, I talked through my remarks,
I spoke about it quickly,
but it's significant, is our CTA chats initiative
because we go and stand in the stations for hours at a time
and talk to people passing through
because people shouldn't have
to figure out when some meeting is just in their
neighborhood and get themselves there at a specific
time, we should come to them.
And I feel strongly about that.
And you have some really fruitful conversations passing
by somebody that's, you know, heading off the train.
They just got off the train.
Um, and we, you know, we, we talk
to them if they have time right there,
we also give them a card to fill out a survey later.
Um, and I feel really strongly about not relying on those
kind of age old traditional methods, uh,
and making sure we're meeting people where they are.
Mm-hmm. Okay. Well thank you for that.
Um, again, I've been writing a CTA all my life
and, um, I have seen it for better
and for, for and for worse.
Um, so, uh, I look forward to continue
to work in my capacity to make sure we continue
and make CTA world class transit system.
So with that said, there being no business further business
before the committee, can I get a motion from Alderman
Harris to, uh, by the same role called Water as was applied
to determine Quorum Alderman Harris?
So moves on the motion, all them favors say, aye,
those opposed no.
And the pen of the chair of the highest habit, the medium
of the Committee on transportation a
public way is now adjourned.
Thank you guys.