Daywatch: CTA touts decreased crime
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Good morning, Chicago.
One year after unveiling a broad plan to address CTA service and safety challenges, President Dorval Carter touted decreases in crime on the transit system and service that runs more closely to schedule, helping to limit the prevalence of ghost buses and trains.
In his update, Carter highlighted Chicago Police Department data showing violent crime on the CTA was down 13% through July, and overall crime was down 9%.
But the CTA still faces challenges running all of its scheduled service, agency data shows, and riders complain of wait times between buses and trains. Key to running more service is hiring and retaining more operators, but the CTA has not yet met its staffing targets for the year.
The data marks the progression of the first year of Carter’s plan to address unpredictable wait times, crime and ghost buses and trains, which show up on digital trackers but fail to arrive in real life. The agency has been plagued by complaints about service, safety and conditions since ridership plummeted at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. By spring, the average number of riders had ticked back up to about 59% of pre-pandemic levels.
Read the full story from the Tribune’s Sarah Freishtat.
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