At yesterday's CTA board meeting, new acting transit agency president Nora Leerhsen discussed issues she will prioritize in order to improve conditions on trains and increase ridership. These include addressing the problem of smoking on trains, and helping unhoused people who spend the night on the Red and Blue lines get access to shelters.
Leerhsen was appointed during the January meeting, after the CTA announced that controversial president Dorval Carter was resigning at the end of the month to take a job at North Lawndale's St. Anthony Hospital. The February 12 meeting was her first meeting as acting president. Leerhsen declined to comment on whether she would seek the job on permanent basis, telling reporters after the meeting that she was "focused on this [current] job."
The meeting also saw the board approve a pilot program for new artificial intelligence assisted cameras that are expected to more quickly detect people trespassing on the tracks. The equipment will be used at two not-yet-announced stations and, like other CTA pilots, will run for a year.
Leerhsen’s two focus areas
The acting president has been with the CTA since November 2014 and has worked her way up from a project coordinator position. She was Carter's chief of staff for six years before being appointed. During the January meeting, the board didn't discuss how long Leerhsen is expected to fill that role. While the CTA board is formally responsible for picking presidents, in practice, it has tended to simply rubber-stamp whoever Chicago mayors have picked.
The CTA kept Leerhsen’s appointment close to the vest – not even the agency's communication staff was aware who would be appointed until the vote. After she was announced as the acting president, Streetsblog submitted an interview request that went unanswered. However, following yesterday's meeting, reporters in attendance were given an opportunity to ask her a few questions, as long as they had to do with the presidential transition.
In her report to the board, Leerhsen credited Carter for the CTA recovering some of its ridership and returning to more reliable service in the post-pandemic era. She said her first priority "is to continue that work" and keep the staff "focused on delivering that service." The acting president said that service frequency, reliable headways and station accessibility were key to getting the numbers up.
At the same time, Leerhsen emphasized that she wasn’t afraid to change course. "I also know there’s a lot of opportunity during this time," she said. "Any change can bring opportunity."
Leerhsen added that she is reaching out to stakeholders and sister agencies, including the Chicago Department of Transportation. The acting president said she has also been talking to transit employees, and has already visited two bus garages. She wanted to not only introduce herself, but to get feedback from them.
"Our employees are incredible, savvy people who know this city and know our issues better than anybody," Leerhsen said. "I really plan to be out regularly." In contrast to Carter, who was criticized for rarely using the transit system he controlled, she described herself as a "regular rider."
Leerhsen said addressing smoking on 'L' trains, which got worse during the pandemic, in important, since it can ruin the rider experience even when everything else goes right. "I'm looking at the on-time train that just got a bad reputation because of smoking," she said. She added that CTA will use customer feedback given to the customer complaints chatbot to help determine where in the system where there are regular complaints about smoking, and give special attention to those locations.
The acting president said another major priority is helping more riders, who stay overnight on the 'L', into the City's shelter system. Tragically, this issue made headlines last Labor Day, when a man shot and killed four people sleeping on a Blue Line train before it arrived at the Forest Park station.
The CTA has an arrangement with the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services, which sets aside a certain number of overnight shelter beds for CTA riders. But as City officials have admitted over the years, there aren’t enough beds to meet demand.
Leerhsen acknowledged that this is a problem, and told the reporters in the follow-up interview that she will be working with DFFS to increase the number of reserved beds, but didn’t elaborate further. "We know that with more funds, we can potentially expand a number of beds," she told the board.
Board members praised Leerhsen, saying they were encouraged by her willingness to listen and make changes. "I appreciate the fact that you’re charting your own course," said board member L. Bernard Jakes. "Looking forward to working with you."
Fellow director Roberto Requejo, who regularly encouraged Carter to listen to residents and organizations who wanted to work with CTA to improve service, reiterated his point to Leerhsen. "I also hear a lot of folks saying, how can we help?" he said.
Board member Michael Eaddy commented that he is "very optimistic about what you shared... I love those two planks: stability and opportunity. That is the right focus." Eaddy added that he appreciates Leerhsen talking with CTA employees.
Track safety pilot
The pilot is one of the several one-year pilots the CTA has launched in recent months. In this case, the board approved a $60,000 contract with Chicago-based STV Inc. CTA will get to keep the equipment after the one-year period, whether or not the pilot is expanded into a full-fledged program.
CTA Chief Innovations Officer Molly Poppe told the board that in 2024 the number of "right of way incursions" – unauthorized people getting on the tracks – increased by more than 20 percent compared to 2023. She said that each of the pilot stations would get four cameras that, with the help of AI, will detect "people or large objects" on the tracks.
Jakes wondered how quickly the information would get back to CTA staff. He brought up past discussions of gun detection technology, and recalled that the stumbling block has been that "the person could be five miles away by the time it gets to the appropriate person."
CTA Vice President of Strategy and Innovation Cara Bader said the advantage of this system is that it can detect people or objects on the tracks right away instead of going through an analysis on an off-site server. She added that an important aspect of the pilot evaluation is how long the information reaches the CTA in practice.
Requejo and Board Chair Lester Barclay said they support the pilot because it could reduce the number of people getting struck and killed by trains. "If we can save one life by slowing the train down, turning off electricity, whatever, [it would be worth it]," Barclay noted. "I think we're moving in the right direction. I’m anxious to see the results, a year from now."
Board member Michele Lee said that her one reservation was that CTA might be missing an opportunity to consolidate technology systems. "I would encourage us to think more broadly," she said. "Let’s not have ten AI tools for ten different things."
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