Durbin, García call on CTA to make greater efforts to prevent crime against staffers, passengers
CHICAGO (CBS) -- U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin and Rep. Jesús "Chuy" García (D-Illinois) sent a letter Tuesday to Chicago Transit Authority President Dorval Carter calling for greater action to prevent crime on the transit system.
In the letter, the lawmakers asked CTA President Dorval Carter to enact a provision required by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, or IIJA, to improve safety for both passengers and transit workers.
"While we appreciate the efforts that both the CTA and Chicago Police Department recently have made to increase passenger and employee safety on trains and buses throughout the CTA's network, more needs to be done to protect CTA's frontline workers and passengers given the alarming increase in crime on the CTA system," the lawmakers wrote.
The IIJA requires transit agencies to set up new safety committees composed of an equal number of frontline employee representatives and management representatives. The team is to identify safety issues and develop strategies to enact them, use a portion of federal funds for safety-related projects, and report all assaults on transit workers to the National Transit Database.
Durbin met last month with leadership of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents transit workers, to discuss new safety measures include in the IIJA.
The union has been demanding serious action to curb crime on the CTA for several months. In particular recently, the union sounded the alarm when a train operator was pushed onto the tracks at the Granville Red Line station in Edgewater.
Amalgamated Transit Workers Union Local 308 President Eric Dixon said the unarmed security guards the city announced last month just aren't cutting it.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot, police Supt. David Brown, and CTA President Dorval Carter Jr. said last month that more unarmed security guards would be added to the trains.
Dixon says earlier this month that it's not working yet.
"I haven't heard of one incident where the unarmed security guards prevented somebody from doing anything," Dixon said. "I haven't heard one."
Meanwhile, the Mayor's office, the CTA, and police have had few if any comments lately about a continued uptick in violence on Chicago public transit.
Durbin and García's full letter can be found here.