{"id":300887,"date":"2025-10-13T21:14:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T21:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/300887\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T21:14:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T21:14:14","slug":"cta-defends-safety-practices-after-feds-threaten-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/300887\/","title":{"rendered":"CTA defends safety practices after feds threaten funding"},"content":{"rendered":"

The CTA defended its commitment to safety in a letter to federal transportation officials sent after President Donald Trump\u2019s Department of Transportation threatened to withhold the agency\u2019s federal funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognize that it is absolutely critical that we remain laser-focused on providing a safe and secure ride for everyone on our system,\u201d acting CTA President Nora Leerhsen wrote in an Oct. 3 letter to Trump\u2019s transportation secretary, Sean Duffy. \u201cWe share your focus on this important issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duffy wrote a letter to the CTA in September asking the agency to lay out its plans to reduce crime and fare evasion on the system \u2014 or risk losing federal funding.<\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate your prompt attention to this matter to avoid further consequences, up to and including redirecting or withholding funding,\u201d Duffy wrote. <\/p>\n

The threat came as the Trump administration has doubled down on rhetoric about crime in Democratic-led cities as a political cudgel, including in Chicago, where crime is down,<\/a> as it is nationwide. Duffy sent a similar letter to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Boston last month, and had previously written to the heads of New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.\u2019s mass transit systems. <\/p>\n

After Duffy\u2019s September letter, the Trump White House did in fact freeze $2.1 billion in federal grant funding<\/a> already awarded to the CTA, mostly for its long-awaited Red Line Extension project \u2014 but it did so citing the agency\u2019s diversity requirements for contractors, not crime. <\/p>\n

The CTA maintains that it\u2019s committed to finishing the Red Line Extension<\/a>, and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said he was considering legal action over the funding freeze.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Leerhsen defended the agency\u2019s safety practices in her letter to Duffy, which the Tribune obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request. Systemwide, she said, crime on the CTA was down 12% over 2022 levels.<\/p>\n

On the Blue Line, Leerhsen claimed, crime has dropped 30% over last year and on the Red Line, it has dropped 14%. <\/p>\n

Crime data analyzed by the Tribune showed that there were seven homicides and eight shootings on the CTA between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, this year, down from nine homicides and 14 shootings during the same time period in 2022.<\/p>\n

Robberies dropped from 414 to 364 and thefts decreased from 725 in 2022 to 560 in 2025 for the first nine months of each year. The number of criminal sexual assaults logged on CTA property increased by one during the two reporting periods in 2022 and 2025.<\/p>\n

Leerhsen laid out the transit agency\u2019s various crime-fighting initiatives, including its use of an AI-gun detection technology called ZeroEyes and the opening of a new strategic support center this summer in collaboration with Chicago police.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith access to CTA\u2019s vast network of cameras across the transit system, and to city of Chicago street cameras, CPD officers assigned to the (strategic support center) monitor and track active and ongoing incidents, as well as assist detectives in identifying and locating offenders that commit crimes on the public transit system,\u201d Leerhsen wrote.<\/p>\n

\"NoraNora Leerhsen, acting president of the CTA, gets on a 1920s-era 4000-series railcar in the Loop on Oct. 1, 2025, where the CTA celebrated their 78th anniversary with Heritage Fleet Program rides for customers. (Eileen T. Meslar\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

Leerhsen also said that as of the beginning of September, Chicago police had issued about 3,200 citations for smoking and 2,200 for fare evasion on the CTA.<\/p>\n

And per Duffy\u2019s request, she laid out a list of security-related federal grants the CTA had received or been awarded.<\/p>\n

The list included a $15.7 million counterterrorism grant from the Department of Homeland Security that could require cooperation with federal immigration enforcement actions.<\/a><\/p>\n

When asked about the grant earlier this month, the CTA would not say whether or not it planned to accept it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The CTA defended its commitment to safety in a letter to federal transportation officials sent after President Donald…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":300888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[64,960,5295,5386,1818,1370,50,80,522],"class_list":{"0":"post-300887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-illinois","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-transportation"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115368930589576071","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}