CITY HALL — CTA President Dorval Carter insisted the city’s transit system is steadily improving at a contentious hearing Tuesday, the transit chief’s first mandated appearance after a years-long push to get him to publicly discuss CTA conditions.
A crowd showed up at City Hall for the City Council’s Transportation Committee hearing Tuesday, where alderpeople and the public grilled Carter on issues ranging from shoddy bus and rail service to the agency’s slow response to unsafe, unsanitary and unreliable conditions on public transit.
The hearing opened with a testy exchange between Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th) and Carter over CTA officials’ history of rarely riding buses and trains, as first reported in a series of investigations by Block Club Chicago.
“We do regularly ride, some ride more than others, but we do ride,” said Carter, adding that it’s often better for leadership to track the system holistically through “reams of data” at headquarters. “Ridership of individual people is not the basis of the decisions made at the CTA. … We know our system better than most people who criticize us.”
Carter has faced heat over the decline of CTA bus and rail service and crime on public transit, among other topics. The CTA boss skipped a public hearing on CTA service in September 2022, leading City Council to pass a measure mandating quarterly hearings with CTA brass.
At the first mandated hearing Tuesday, Carter promised to restore rail service to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year.
The agency leader said he has stabilized the CTA workforce, gutted during the pandemic, by “aggressively training” 90 new rail operators last year and planning to hire another 200 this year.
Carter’s ultimate goal is to have 2 million people ride the transit system every day, he said — a lofty goal.
The CTA averaged 836,000 riders a day in December 2023, according to the agency’s latest data. That’s still below the 1.3 million average weekday riders in December 2019 prior to the pandemic, according to an agency report.
Carter set other far-flung goals, saying he wants the CTA to be comparable to the Underground in London, which has about 4 million daily riders across its 270 stations, or the Paris Métro, which has more than 5 million daily passengers along its 301 stops with a 98 percent reliability rate.
“This is the year we’re going to start to see everything come back,” Carter said. “I’m looking to compare this transit system to London, to Paris, to Hong Kong, to the best transit systems in the world. … We have the infrastructure that’s competitive. What we need are resources and policies to make it happen.”
At Tuesday’s hearing, CTA riders said delayed or “ghost” buses and trains, along with less frequent service, has made them late for work and appointments. They also complained about packed cars, faulty train tracking technology, rising homelessness, crime and dirty trains and buses since the pandemic. Ald. Gregory Mitchell (7th) extended public comment so more people could speak.
Two commenters spoke in support of Carter’s hallmark infrastructure plans to extend the Red Line south and renovate existing sections of the Red and Purple lines, with Carter calling those projects the cornerstones of his efforts to increase equitable access to transit.
But most of speakers questioned Carter’s leadership and said the mayor has failed to hold him accountable.
CTA rider Austin Busch called on alderpeople to pressure the mayor to reshuffle Carter’s oversight board with more experienced transit professionals, referring to a Block Club investigation that revealed Carter has leaned on his board to shield himself from public pushback while growing his salary to over $375,000 a year.
“Public transit is for the public the same way public office is. You’re here to support us and not the system,” Busch said. “It’s not operating right now at the level of service it should be. … Accountability falls on the city that allows this to continue.”
Olivia Gahan of Commuters Take Action, a group of frustrated riders that pushed for the quarterly hearings, questioned the CTA’s substantial spending on unarmed private security and K9 units compared with its homelessness outreach program.
A train operator said she was assaulted on the Red Line. She asked Carter to bring back two-person train crews, a call that’s been a sticking point for transit advocates.
“I appreciate my job and enjoy my job,” she said. “We just deal with a lot more things now.”
Carter said the CTA is making strides in many of the areas of concern raised at the hearing.
The agency regularly fulfills all of its scheduled bus service and 90 percent of its scheduled rail service, Carter said. CTA is keeping the public informed of its progress through a performance dashboard tracking ridership, service levels and hiring efforts.
Carter again asserted workforce shortages have presented the biggest challenges to the system’s post-pandemic rebound. The system had about 1,000 vacant jobs in late 2022.
The agency has since hired over 100 bus mechanics, increased janitorial staff, expanded its Second Chance program and undertaken “record-breaking hiring efforts” with more than a dozen career fairs, Carter said. Asked by Ald. Nicole Lee (11th) if those efforts have addressed retirement and attrition issues, Carter said yes.
“We still need to instill trust and build trust with the public once again,” Lee said.
Ald. Samantha Nugent (39th) asked Carter to elaborate on his plans to address crime at a dedicated hearing, citing charges announced Tuesday in the sexual assault of a 16-year-old on the Purple Line and a fatal beating on a Red Line train last month.
Carter said he plans to meet with police Supt. Larry Snelling later this week on CTA public safety efforts.
“We have always requested additional resources and are in constant conversation with police about the crime situation on CTA,” Carter said. “This issue happens because of whatever going on in our society that makes people feel like they can attack. The solution to that is a bigger conversation than CTA, but we’re prepared to support it in any way we can.”
Alderpeople asked that Carter provide more signage and announcements to remind riders of appropriate behaviors on transit — and encouraged him to start an ambassador program to guide riders and direct them to services. Carter said he was open to adding ambassadors at the O’Hare and Midway stops.
“The first impression of Chicago is not a very good impression,” Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) said. “People flying in seem to look at the option of taking an Uber or rideshare as a better option. We need to continue to work on that.”
One rider thanked City Hall for finally giving people an opportunity to speak directly to CTA’s top leaders.
“CTA is a major asset we should take care of, and it’s not meeting its potential,” she said. “We’re here because we care. We’re here because we’re concerned. We want our voices to be heard.”
Carter declined to answer questions from reporters following the hearing.
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