Calling out in transit: Advocates ridicule mayor re-nominating NITA-skeptical Barclay, Pastor Eaddy to new CTA board, leaving behind eTOD expert Requejo
Today Mayor Brandon Johnson took steps toward reifying our region’s new transit governance structure, as dictated by the Northern Illinois Transit Authority Act. He nominated directors for the remixed CTA board, as well as the NITA (the replacement for the Regional Transit Authority umbrella agency), Metra, and Pace boards. The Chicago City Council will have to approve of Johnson’s Picks.
Suburban transit advocacy guru Scott Presslak, aka Star:Line Chicago, created the following graphic, which shows the current board composition for the four transit agencies, and what it will be when the new boards launch on September 1. In the past, the Chicago mayor tapped four out of seven CTA directors, but under the new structure, Johnson only gets to choose three out of seven.
Here are screenshots of City documents listing the mayor’s nominees and their reported credentials, shared on Twitter by Block Club Chicago reporter Quinn Meyers.
Tribune transportation reporter Talia Soglin did a good summary of the nomination process, and some of the issues involved. If you have a subscription, I’d suggest giving it a read to get up to speed on the somewhat arcane proceedings.
Streetsblog reached out to several local transit advocacy organizations and experts to get Johnson’s picks. But none of those who responded or were prepared to give a statement by press time. If we hear from any of them in the near future, this post will be updated.
The main thing that seemed odd when I saw the list of board candidates was that the mayor was re-appointing Pastor Michael Eaddy to the CTA board. While Eaddy is a key figure in the West Side’s faith community and no stranger to West Side politics, when Johnson nominated him in 2024, he had zero transit expertise. And he doesn’t seem to have done much to distinguish himself during his two years on the board.
But over on Bluesky, Scott Presslak’s Star:Line Chicago account also poked at the mayor for keeping re-appointing current CTA Board Chair Lester Barclay (Johnson also picked him for the NITA board), but leaving behind director Roberto Requejo. Last November in a Trib op-ed, Barclay expressed skepticism about the Chicago mayor losing dominance over the CTA, warning that it could dilute “the local accountability and autonomy that have been essential to delivering responsive, community-centered service.”
Meanwhile Requejo was formerly the executive director of Elevated Chicago, a nonprofit that promotes equitable transit-oriented development and helped coordinate the creation of the City’s eTOD plan. The Trib’s Talia Soglin implied that Johnson may have abandoned Requejo behind as payback for opposing the mayor’s plan to nominate his ex-chief operating officer John Roberson who, again, had little or no transit expertise. That happened during a surreal May 2025 CTA board meeting I call The Notorious “Don’t Be A Backbiting Snake” Incident.
Here’s some more commentary on Johnson’s selections from the Star:Line Chicago discussion.
Again, we’ll update this post with statements from advocacy organizations and experts, as opposed to amusing memes, if we hear back from whem.
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