CTA security enhancement plan follows federal push, complaints

By Jim Talamonti | The Center Square
The Center Square

(The Center Square) – After resident complaints and threatened funding cuts by the Trump administration, the Chicago Transit Authority has submitted a revised security plan to the Federal Transit Administration.

The CTA plan released on Tuesday includes a 75% increase in monthly system policing hours, crime reduction targets and expanded social service support.

Chicago resident Ruben Ontiveros told the city council Committee on Pedestrian and Traffic Safety at a hearing on Tuesday that the Chicago Department of Transportation wants people to walk or use public transit.

“A lady got burned alive three months ago. A man was filmed and got stabbed to death January 13th at 13th and Archer. So what I’m trying to say, CDOT wants us to walk, take CTA? CTA’s not even safe,” Ontiveros said.

The FTA sent a letter to Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson in December, directing the CTA to implement a plan that would reduce assaults on transit workers and passengers.

Days later, the FTA rejected the CTA’s initial plan and threatened to withhold as much as $50 million in funding unless the agency submitted a more aggressive security enhancement plan within 90 days.

Chicago Republican Party Chairman and former Chicago Police Department detective Chuck Hernandez said President Donald Trump wants to see transformational change within the CTA.

“He had to light that fire under the CTA to come up with a plan to keep our citizens safe,” Hernandez told The Center Square.

Hernandez said the feds rejected the CTA’s previous plan because it failed to significantly increase the presence of police.

“So now with this new increase of 75% in man hours on the CTA, I think this is going to be acceptable,” Hernandez said.

The plan promises 34% more hours from the Chicago Police Department’s Public Transit Section, double the off-duty officers patrolling CTA on their days off and Cook County Sheriff’s Police on the system’s rail lines.

Hernandez said it would be good to see visible enforcement by Cook County Sheriff’s Police so people could see their tax dollars at work.

In the report released on Tuesday, the CTA cited improved security numbers since the December 2025 introduction of the CTA and CPD’s joint security surge. CTA said total transit worker assaults fell 25% in January and 29% in February when to the six-month average leading up to the surge.

In his letter to Pritzker and Johnson in December, FTA Administrator Marc Molinaro cited statistics reported by the CTA to the National Transit Database, indicating the rate of assaults against transit workers on CTA rail and bus service exceeded the national average of comparable transit agencies every year since fiscal year 2015.