CHICAGO — The CTA’s new rail schedule aims to combat service issues reported by riders across the city — but it doesn’t add trains.
The new “dynamic” rail schedule for the spring and summer went into effect last week with a promise of “gradually increasing” service through the seasons as the agency looks to bring on more rail operators, according to a news release.
The CTA began adding some pre-pandemic bus runs back to its schedule last month, but its new train schedule shows no significant additions, transit advocates and a train operator said.
“It’s pretty much the same,” a train operator said. “But more people are riding, and we need to see a service increase.”
During a City Council hearing in February, CTA President Dorval Carter promised to restore rail service to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year. The number of scheduled trains running across the system is still 20 percent below pre-pandemic levels, said Brandon McFadden, a cybersecurity analyst who tracks CTA reliability.
All agree the problem comes down to staffing. Four years after the pandemic, the agency continues to lose rail operators faster than it can hire them.
There were 285 CTA rail operators in February — down 18 since December 2023, according to the latest data from the Regional Transportation Authority. The CTA had 361 rail operators in December 2019.
Transit agencies in other major U.S. cities have been faster to recover their workforces.
The BART in San Francisco added 65 rail operators over the last year and now has a higher headcount than it did pre-pandemic, a spokesperson said. The MTA in New York City has 79 more rail operators than it did in the first quarter of 2020, a spokesperson said. Washington D.C.’s Metro is seven operators under its required headcount to run full service, which includes a buffer for vacation time and days off, a spokesperson said.
The CTA says help is on the way, with 67 hires currently in rail operator training.
“Overall, the levels of service will have some immediate improvements, especially along the O’Hare Branch of the Blue Line, but much of the scheduled service is similar to the service we were providing prior to the new schedule,” CTA spokesperson Maddie Kilgannon said in a statement.
CTA staffing levels for bus operations are recovering but are still about 150 positions below pre-pandemic levels, according to agency data. A hiring report last year by TransitCenter credited the CTA for streamlining “short-term capacity problems” by putting applications and assessments for bus operators online.
“Agencies are currently faced with the need to recover from slower hiring during the pandemic, higher attrition rates, and a challenging labor market — all while preparing for the coming wave of retirements,” according to the study. “Many transit agency human resource teams cannot keep up with the hiring needed to address the current vacancies.”
Yonah Freemark, a research director studying transit systems at D.C.-based think tank Urban Institute, said the CTA’s pandemic recovery still trails behind its counterparts in other major U.S. cities, which have increased staff and in some cases expanded rail service.
“CTA has blamed challenges on attracting conductors, but other transit agencies seem to have gotten over that problem,” Freemark said. “Chicago’s excuses don’t add up anymore.”
At the February council meeting, Carter said he aims to make the CTA rival transit systems in London and Paris and has worked to address retirement and attrition issues.
But attrition at the CTA continues to be a problem as rail operators deal with inconsistent schedules, “swing” shifts that are only hours apart, limited vacation and the agency’s reliance on workers picking up overtime, a rail operator said.
Data shows the CTA’s hiring efforts are being offset by rail operators who choose to quit or transfer to other departments within the agency. One rail operator told Block Club they’re interested in a less demanding role as a supervisor or as a switch or control tower worker.
“The culture right now is ‘get in, get out.’ Just keep your head down,” the rail operator said. “People want to just get off the trains, honestly. It feels like they haven’t done anything to improve quality of life.”
Natasha Gray, a rail operator who spoke at the February city council hearing, said she was assaulted on the Red Line. She asked Carter to bring back two-person train crews to better protect workers.
“I appreciate my job and enjoy my job,” Gray said. “We just deal with a lot more things now.”
Shifts in the rail schedule are drafted by rail operators and can only be changed by the agency twice a year under union contracts. Leaders with CTA’s largest rail union, currently negotiating a new contract, did not return requests for comment.
McFadden credited the CTA for putting out a “more transparent” train schedule that now removes shifts that aren’t picked by operators, which could lead to a more accurate public-facing schedule and fewer “ghost” trains and buses.
“It’s an underpromise approach,” McFadden said. “The public will see closer to 100 percent of scheduled train runs, but the service levels itself are no different than before.”
The clearer schedules also reveal more “inequities” in train service, McFadden said. Shifts including some weekday evenings on the Green Line’s South and West sides often go unclaimed, forcing customers to wait an hour or more for a train.
Whether the train schedules can be “dynamic” — adding back service through the spring and summer — remains to be seem, McFadden said.
“They haven’t had the operators to run more trains,” McFadden said.
Mayor Brandon Johnson joined Carter at a Wednesday ceremony for about 100 new CTA hires and staff promotions.
“You are part of the bright future of CTA, but you’re also the future of this city,” Johnson said. “Thank you for fighting for a transportation system that our city truly deserves.”
Support Local News!
Subscribe to Block Club Chicago, an independent, 501(c)(3), journalist-run newsroom. Every dime we make funds reporting from Chicago’s neighborhoods. Already subscribe? Click here to gift a subscription, or you can support Block Club with a tax-deductible donation.
Listen to the Block Club Chicago podcast:
