Metra’s board Wednesday approved creating a new Regional Day Pass that would allow riders unlimited trips for one day across the CTA, Metra and Pace. The measure still has to be approved by the CTA, Pace and the Regional Transportation Authority at meetings later this month, but if passed, the program would be tested for up to six months.

The move comes as the transit agencies are still looking to bring back riders from pandemic lows and adjust to changing demand, as riders commute less often to Loop offices and look to take buses and trains for other types of trips. It marks the latest attempt to adjust fares, following the creation of a monthly pass that can be used across the transit systems and Metra’s overhaul in February of its fare zones.

The pass would cost between $10 and $16 on weekdays depending on the length of the trip on Metra, where fares are based on the distance traveled. Weekend passes would be a flat $10. Reduced weekday fares would also be available.

The new pass is expected to be available for purchase this year, though the exact date will depend on when the Ventra vendor finishes development and testing. It would be available in the Ventra app, and valid until 3 a.m. the day after it’s first used.

The RTA said the pass prices come out to less than the cost of paying for both a CTA day pass and a Metra day pass. The RTA would reimburse the transit agencies up to $1 million for the difference in price.

The RTA said the ability to integrate fares across the systems, provide frequent service and maintain relatively low fares in the future will depend on getting additional funding from the state to fill a $730 million budget gap expected when federal COVID-19 relief funding starts running out in 2026.

“This agreement is a major step forward for integrating fare policies and products between the region’s transit agencies as we look toward a post-pandemic future of changing travel patterns and more inter-connectivity between agency services,” RTA officials said in the statement.

The additional flights from the Chicago-based airline are a boon to O’Hare International Airport, a key economic driver for the city where traffic has lagged pre-pandemic levels.

They bring United, one of O’Hare’s two main carriers, to its largest schedule from O’Hare since 2019, the carrier said. That includes an extra 38 flights between O’Hare and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, which serves the District of Columbia. Other additional flights will go to cities such as Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Austin, Phoenix, San Diego and Seattle.

All told, the carrier will operate more than 530 flights daily at O’Hare on its busiest days, United said.

The additional flights come as the city prepares for the economic and security impacts of the four-day convention, which is expected to bring a slew of politicians, visitors and protesters in August. The DNC Host Committee estimates the convention could bring about 50,000 visitors, 20,000 media members and 5,500 delegates, alternates and guests to the city.

For its part, United’s preparations at O’Hare bring the amount of scheduled space on flights out of the airport in August to slightly higher than the number of seats scheduled before the pandemic. But overall at O’Hare, airlines have still scheduled fewer flights and fewer seats out of the airport than they did in summer 2019, according to data from aviation firm Cirium.

O’Hare’s other main carrier, American Airlines, hasn’t updated its schedule for the convention, a spokeswoman said. The airline has eight daily flights between Chicago and Reagan National.

Southwest, which is the primary carrier at Midway, also does not plan to add flights for the convention. A spokesman said the airline will have 223 flights a day out of Midway during the convention, including six per day between Midway and Reagan National, and up to six per day between Midway and Baltimore. The airline will also have two daily flights between Baltimore and O’Hare, where the carrier previously announced it was trimming its schedule.

United is also adding 72 flights to and from Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention in July, including from Chicago, the carrier said. The additional flights will increase the carrier’s capacity in Milwaukee by 75%, United said.

“These conventions are steeped in tradition and have now evolved to become a weeklong celebration of our political process,” said Patrick Quayle, United’s senior vice president of global network planning and alliances, in a statement. “We’re proud to give people even more options to visit two great cities, and participate in these historic events and make their voices heard.”

The findings, published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, follow years of scrutiny of racial disparities in Chicago traffic stops.

They also come amid renewed debate about the use of the stops, as outgoing Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx unveiled a controversial proposal to decline to prosecute possession cases when guns or drugs are found during traffic stops initiated for reasons like expired registration or a broken light. Officials also recently moved to add oversight of traffic stops to a federal consent decree guiding Chicago Police Department reform.

In the latest study, researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago, Cornell University, Rutgers University and the University of Sydney in Australia analyzed GPS data from cellphones and 2019 data on traffic stops and speed camera tickets. They determined the racial makeup of drivers on the road, and compared that with the demographics of the people stopped or ticketed.

They found that on a street where half of drivers were white, the probability of a white driver getting a traffic camera ticket was just under 50%, while white drivers made up, on average, fewer than 20% of police stops.

On a street where half of drivers were Black, the probability of a Black driver getting a camera ticket was 54%. But Black drivers made up about 70% of police stops.

Comparing automated camera data to stops initiated by police sheds light in a clear way on the human role of the stops, said Nebiyou Tilahun, one of the study’s authors and an urban planning and policy professor at UIC.

“It specifically shows bias,” he said.

Asked about the study, CPD reiterated a statement it previously issued in light of the recent consent decree development, saying “Superintendent (Larry) Snelling is committed to ensuring traffic stops are being used effectively.” The department agreed to include the stops in the consent decree, and had already been reviewing use of the stops and is training officers, police said.

Traffic stops were down by about 80,500 year-to-date, the Police Department said Thursday, and felony arrests had increased by about 500. The department routinely initiates more than a half-million traffic stops each year.

Sometimes caught up in those stops is a 42-year-old insurance broker. The man, who is Black, said he has frequently been pulled over and asked that his name be withheld to talk about interactions with police.

One traffic stop stood out to him. It was near the University of Chicago one evening some nine years ago when his son, then around 5, was in the car. He asked an officer why he was pulled over and asked to talk with a supervisor, but was never told why he was stopped, he said.

He recalled how his heart thumped in his chest with worry as the officers held his license and registration.

“I get it. Cops have a job to do, whatever that job is,” he said. “That’s one aspect. But the other aspect is: Listen, man. I’m a citizen. I don’t want to do anything other than make it home right now.”

Chicago has for years grappled with concerns about racial disparities in traffic stops. The number of traffic stops began rising dramatically in 2016, at the same time stops of pedestrians plummeted after a new state law and an agreement between the ACLU and the Police Department required officers to more thoroughly document and justify the pedestrian encounters to ease concerns about racial profiling and constitutional violations.

The debate over traffic stop policy has continued more recently. The consent decree development concerning how traffic stops are monitored followed the fatal shooting of Dexter Reed in March during a traffic stop. Body-worn camera footage showed Reed, purportedly pulled over for not wearing a seat belt, shooting an officer in the wrist before four other tactical officers opened fire, killing the 26-year-old man.

Foxx said she was grateful Snelling agreed to include traffic stops in the consent decree. But she described her proposal declining certain charges from certain stops as another response to “racism baked into the system.”

“If not this, what should we be doing?” she asked. “Where is the urgency from all of our stakeholders to address the repeated findings of systemic racism in these studies? It is not enough to simply say what we can’t do. I’m looking for someone to tell me what we can.”

The concept has stirred controversy. Foxx is set to leave office in the coming months, but said she wanted to move along the process to try to address the issue, though the next state’s attorney could have the ability to keep or scrap the policy.

In an April report, advocacy organization Impact for Equity found Chicago police conducted more traffic stops in 2023 than the year before, and the stops were largely for improper registration and headlight, taillight and license plate offenses, considered minor violations.

Nearly 4% of stops led to a citation and 2% led to an arrest, the report found. And Black and Latino drivers were disproportionately stopped and arrested, according to the report.

Impact for Equity and the Free2Move Coalition, a group focused on racial equity in traffic safety in Chicago, called for reducing pretextual traffic stops, or a stop for a minor violation like expired registration used as an excuse to search for evidence of an unrelated crime.

“It’s not resulting in any sort of public safety gains,” said Amy Thompson, staff counsel for Impact for Equity’s criminal legal system section. “And I think what we see is that really degrades trust between communities and law enforcement, when they perceive that they are just a target for law enforcement and not a true partner.”

Another layer to the traffic enforcement issue is differences in the level of investment across Chicago communities, Thompson said. It can be easier to speed down streets in neighborhoods primarily of color, which often don’t get the same safety measures meant to slow traffic that are put in place in other city neighborhoods. And neighborhoods that have been disinvested in for years have fewer businesses, limiting foot traffic on streets and making it easier to speed, she said.

The latest study, comparing enforcement to who is using the road and looking at both traffic stops and camera tickets, builds on Impact for Equity’s findings, said Wenfei Xu, another of the study’s authors and a professor at Cornell.

“If the aim is to arrest, (a traffic stop) doesn’t seem very effective in terms of how we’re spending taxpayer money,” she said, citing the low arrest rate found by Impact for Equity.

The city’s use of automated ticketing has drawn its own concerns from critics, and several investigations have examined the impact on low-income violators and households in majority Black and Hispanic areas. A 2022 ProPublica investigation found that households in majority Black and Hispanic ZIP codes in Chicago “received tickets at around twice the rate of those in white areas,” despite cameras being roughly evenly distributed across the city.

The traffic stop study’s authors said automated cameras provided a more race-neutral comparison point. The study refutes arguments that perhaps Black drivers speed more than other drivers, pointing instead to human bias, said Michael Smart, a study author and urban planning and policy professor at Rutgers.

“(Bias is) not just a police issue,” he said, “But it’s especially acute among police because of the powers that police are given.”

A 35-year-old South Shore resident, who requested his name not be used, said he has experienced that bias firsthand.

The man, who is Black, still recalls his first traffic stop when he was a junior at Mount Carmel High School, driving the red 1992 Mustang he and his dad had fixed up.

A string of other traffic stops followed, like the embarrassing one his then-girlfriend’s family witnessed while he was waiting to pick her up from a family gathering downtown, he said. Or the disconcerting one, years later when he was driving a black 2005 Mustang, when he was cut off and boxed in by several police cars after dropping his girlfriend off after dinner.

The man, who loves American muscle cars, now drives a Honda Civic, reserving the Mustang for special cruises in the summer. After being pulled over so many times in the Mustang he was frustrated and wanted to draw less attention to himself, he said.

Even so, he said he was pulled over three times in two years in the Civic, though at least one was not by Chicago police.

“I’m always trying to go home,” he said. “My focus is going home.”

This story has been updated to correct a reference to the next Cook County state’s attorney. 

At a City Council committee hearing, Carter highlighted his efforts to right the troubled transit system amid post-pandemic struggles, but focused first on the more personal attacks he faces. It was one of his first attempts to publicly address what he called “the elephant in the room” as political pressure against him has mounted for months.

“As an African American man, this city has a history of attacking and trying to bring down their African American leaders,” Carter said during 20 minutes of opening remarks. “What I would hope is that we would work together to find a way to support our agency and make our agency better.”

Carter’s emphatic defense comes a week after 29 of 50 aldermen signed on to a resolution calling for Mayor Brandon Johnson to fire him. Johnson has declined to discuss Carter’s future, and the resolution was sidelined by a legislative maneuver.

But during Thursday’s Transportation Committee hearing, Carter said the criticism has made it hard for him and his employees to do their jobs.

“I have been turned into a caricature,” he said. “I have been turned into something that is less than a human being.”

The embattled appointed official walked aldermen through his childhood growing up on the South Side and his hopes for a more equitable Chicago. He described returning from a federal job to work at the CTA knowing the transit system and the city had experienced years of disinvestment. The harsh criticism of the CTA risks more disinvestment, he said, limiting the opportunities for the agency to advance.

Carter cited rising ridership from pandemic lows as evidence the agency was on the right path. But he acknowledged wanting to work to make the agency better, saying he would rather talk about the issues raised by riders or about funding than personal specifics.

“We’re spending a lot of time talking about my salary, talking about statistics,” he said. “Instead of, as one (public) commenter said, talking about the people.”

Carter has come under fire in recent months as complaints mounted about the transit agency’s ability to provide frequent, reliable and safe service. The agency, like others in the region and across the country, also faces a looming financial cliff when federal pandemic aid runs out, and transit agencies are looking to Springfield for solutions.

Among the challenges the CTA has faced are cutbacks in service as the organization struggled to hire and retain enough staff to operate buses and trains. The CTA slashed schedules on some train lines by as much as 25% to 30% compared with 2019 service levels, a 2023 Tribune analysis found, leaving riders with long wait times and crowded buses and trains.

Carter has previously promised to restore transit service to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year, a vow he reiterated Thursday.

So far, the agency added bus service back on 29 of 127 routes under new schedules unveiled in March. On the rail side, schedules that took effect in April showed few service additions.

CTA spokesperson Catherine Hosinski said at the time that the agency was still working to add service as previously proposed, and planned to regularly roll out updated schedules through the summer as more rail operators are trained and available to head out on the tracks.

Chicago’s transit woes have already rippled across City Hall. Earlier this month, Johnson nominated a politically connected West Side pastor, the Rev. Ira Acree, for the Regional Transportation Authority board that oversees Pace, Metra and the CTA.

Acree drew sharp criticism for showing little knowledge about the region’s biggest transit struggles, including an impending $730 million funding shortfall, even as his nomination was advanced by a council committee. After the pushback, he withdrew his name as a candidate for the position last week.

But Carter has mounted a more determined defense. He met with members of the council’s Black Caucus Wednesday, several aldermen told the Tribune. During the call, he asked the caucus members to oppose the resolution calling for him to be fired. It is unclear whether the resolution’s author, Ald. Andre Vásquez, 40th, will push for it to go back up for a vote.

After Carter’s opening speech Thursday, several aldermen who have called for him to be fired said he should have focused less on defending himself and more on the status of CTA’s service.

“I’m feeling a little disappointed in your approach,” Ald. Jessie Fuentes, 26th, said. “I was hoping that today we would have learned about the challenges and the solutions that maybe you are putting in place.”

Vásquez asked Carter a question about attrition, a nod to Carter’s statements that staffing challenges are at the core of the agency’s inability to run more trains and buses. Carter should focus more on those types of service issues and less on personal attacks, Vásquez said.

“I get criticism all the time. I have taken criticism for decades. I have been a public official my entire career,” Carter fired back. “What’s going on here goes way beyond that.”

“We’re just holding people accountable more than we did a decade ago, which is a good thing for government,” Vásquez responded.

But as Carter’s critics maintained their frustrations, several Black aldermen rallied behind him. They praised his work and distanced themselves from the criticism he has faced.

Ald. Stephanie Coleman, 16th, chair of the council’s Black Caucus, said the pushback on Carter is “mean-spirited and lacks respect.” Other leaders of struggling city departments have not faced such critique, she said.

“I am not disappointed in your approach today,” she said. “I appreciate your honesty, your humility and your courage.”

She thanked Carter for his leadership and promised him the Black Caucus will not call for his resignation.

Ald. Pat Dowell, 3rd, noted that most of the backers of the resolution calling for Carter to be fired “did not come from my community.”

“I support you and your leadership,” she told Carter.

Ald. David Moore, 17th, said he does not get many constituent calls concerning CTA service and believes Carter is doing “an exceptional job.” He commended Carter’s ability to secure funding from the federal and state governments.

“I don’t think you get enough credit for getting funding for the Red Line extension project,” that will bring the Red Line south to 130th Street, he said. “For the ones that have concerns, I respect them, but I don’t think this is the time to get rid of someone who can help us address those concerns.”

The announcement shows growing momentum on the long-awaited rebuild, which calls for replacing Terminal 2 with a new Global Terminal and adding two satellite concourses. But many questions remain about the timeline, cost and design of the delayed expansion project.

“This is a once in a generation expansion, the modernization of O’Hare,” Johnson said at a news conference. “Investing in our airports is an investment in all of our communities.”

The satellite’s designs include tall, rounded ceilings, garden rest spaces and tree-like support columns designed to make visitors feel like they are “moving through an orchard,” a nod to the airport’s original name, Orchard Field, said Ryan Culligan, design principal at architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

The project was designed with tones “inspired by midwestern landscapes” and is “beautiful, impactful and practical,” he added.

Early work began on the satellite last year, Chicago Department of Aviation Commissioner Jamie Rhee said. Design is around 30% done on both planned satellites, the new Global Terminal and the underground tunnels that connect them with the rest of the airport, she said.

Rhee declined to share estimates on when the overall terminal expansions will be finished, citing the need to minimize disruptions for carriers. Phasing will be planned “over the next couple of months,” she added.

“This is very complex construction right in the middle of the heart of their operations, and we need them to make money, we need them to keep operating,” Rhee said. “But our work progresses.”

In a news release shared afterward the city said the first concourse is expected to be completed in 2028.

The O’Hare rebuild is mired in negotiations and potential changes. Here’s how another airport finished construction.

The terminal expansion project has lagged behind schedule since its announcement six years ago and became mired in months of contentious negotiations, as the airport’s two main airlines, United and American, pushed back against rising costs.

In early May the carriers, who are footing much of the construction bill, agreed to a deal to change the order of construction, paving a path forward on the project. The deal allowed the city to move forward with building the first satellite concourse while planning a phased construction of the Global Terminal. The second satellite concourse will move forward if enough money is left over, United has previously said.

The terminal work is the centerpiece of a broad overhaul of the airport, a crucial piece of the city’s economy and a hub in the nation’s air system, that was initially pegged at $8.5 billion when the airlines signed off on the project in 2018. The terminal work was to feature the soaring, 2.2 million-square-foot Global Terminal, designed by a team led by architect Jeanne Gang, which would more than double the space of the current Terminal 2 and add additional gates. It would also allow travelers to move more seamlessly between domestic and international flights.

But costs, largely financed by city bonds backed by airline fees, ballooned, and the project fell significantly behind schedule. The airlines said at one point last year they had received a cost estimate that put the terminal work alone $1.5 billion over budget in 2018 dollars.

Nate Gatten, American’s chief government affairs officer, credited Johnson Tuesday with “getting the process back on track.” By focusing on the Global Terminal and first satellite, the city’s tweaks to the terminal expansions prioritize the “critical elements,” said Brandon Fair, United’s vice president for corporate real estate.

While the airlines have signaled the second satellite will be tied to the budget, city leaders again said Tuesday they are bullish that the concourse will indeed be completed.

John Roberson, Johnson’s chief operating officer, guaranteed the second satellite concourse will be finished. But to make sure the city stays within budget while completing the three major terminal expansion pieces, some aspects of the overrall project may need to be “value engineered,” he said.

“We have to do that,” Roberson said. “We are not going to over-build, but we are not going to under-build either.”

Roberson said there are “ongoing conversations” about what the designs for the satellites and Global Terminal will ultimately look like. The city has not released updated renderings for the Global Terminal.

Early plans for the terminal progressed with much fanfare. When the original plan launched, the city undertook an opaque selection process to pick design teams for the new terminal and satellites, ultimately selecting a team led by hometown star Gang to design the Global Terminal. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, known for designing the Willis Tower and the former John Hancock Center, would design the satellite concourses.

Gang’s initial design for the terminal, unveiled in 2019, included a sculpted, three-part terminal that wraps around a towering sky-lit atrium. The terminal’s interior would include ample greenery and nature-inspired architecture.

Gang’s firm, Studio Gang, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the latest plans Tuesday.

Roberson compared planning and executing the expansion project Tuesday to remodeling a kitchen.

“Where things start is not necessarily where things finish,” Roberson said. “You may have a lot of great ideas in the beginning about what you want that remodel project to look like. But there’s a budget.”

jsheridan@chicagotribune.com

The head of the union that represents bus drivers says he anticipates having enough staffing for both the DNC and regular scheduled bus service. But designating buses for the convention has some advocates concerned.

“Pulling CTA operators from their regular routes to a specified task that doesn’t serve all of Chicago is of tremendous concern,” said Kyle Lucas, with the transportation advocacy group Better Streets Chicago. “And what will service look like for everyday people during that time?”

Transportation is just one of the ways the city is likely to feel the effects of the four-day convention, which is expected to bring a slew of politicians, visitors and protesters in August. Though many details about plans for the convention have yet to be publicized, officials have already begun telling residents and downtown businesses to brace for the effects of heightened security around McCormick Place and the United Center, key convention sites.

The CTA has agreed to provide the buses, maintenance staff, drivers and other employees needed to transport convention participants as part of a “secured transit system,” according to a copy of an ordinance approved by the Transit Board. In return, the DNC host committee will pay the CTA $4.24 million if all 250 buses are used.

The designated buses would make up about 13% of the CTA’s roughly 1,900 total buses. And that proportion could be significant, advocates said.

“I think if it’s over 10% (of the fleet) there’s a potential that it could put pressure on the ability to deliver regular service,” said Audrey Wennink, transportation director for the Metropolitan Planning Council.

Already, the CTA has struggled to provide frequent and reliable service as it grapples with a shortage of operators to run buses and trains. By one measurement of service levels, CTA buses were scheduled to drive more than 3.9 million miles in March, down from 4.3 million in March 2020, federal transit data shows.

The CTA has added some 400 bus operators to its staff over the past year and recently added service on some routes. Still, in April the agency was about 120 bus drivers short of 2019 staffing levels, according to CTA data.

The CTA did not answer questions about whether it would have enough staffing and buses to provide both DNC and regular service or how it planned to do so. In a statement, the agency said only that it has committed to providing buses, planning was still underway, and “CTA has a long history of successfully providing supplemental service during special events.”

Keith Hill, president of the union that represents bus drivers, said he expected to be able to meet the CTA’s service plan during the convention. Every CTA garage has a pool of fill-in drivers, known as “extra board,” who can cover summer events, any reroutes, the DNC and regular service, he said.

The CTA is not planning to pull 250 bus drivers from regular service for the entire four days of the convention, he said, adding it’s too early to determine whether the agency will rely on overtime to meet staffing needs.

But in discussions with the CTA, the union said it had an obligation to provide service to the city regardless of the DNC, Hill said.

The CTA also provided buses during the 1996 DNC. That year, the agency caused a stir by pulling up to 100 of its newest, air-conditioned buses from regular service to shuttle credentialed guests between downtown hotels and the United Center during the evening rush, according to Tribune reporting.

This year, extra drivers could help cover the needs of the DNC, and other transportation options could also keep the buses running smoothly, Wennink said. For example, temporary dedicated bus lanes to the United Center could ensure attendees have a smooth experience getting around town.

“If we’re providing all these buses, you’d better make sure they can operate efficiently and not be stuck in traffic,” she said.

Improvements like temporary bus lanes are also a chance to show what the future of transportation in the city could be, Lucas said.

“That would have been a wonderful opportunity for us to demonstrate how we can move more people quickly and efficiently and to places of high traffic volume,” he said.

The city’s Transportation Department said it was working with the CTA, and local and federal law enforcement, including the Secret Service, on route options for United Center shuttles. More information, including about traffic and parking impacts, will be made public once the security perimeter for the DNC is finalized, the department said.

But some CTA riders will likely see one benefit before the DNC. The long-awaited Damen Green Line station, a little less than half a mile from the United Center, is set to open in July, the Transportation Department said.

The station, which will fill a 1.5-mile gap between stations on the train line, was initially expected to open in 2020. Construction was pushed back several times, and was recently targeted to be finished in the first quarter of this year.

Now, if all goes according to plan, it will be open in time for the DNC.

Acree, pastor of Austin’s Greater St. John Bible Church, is a close ally of Johnson’s and a civil rights activist. As his nomination advanced in the City Council’s Transportation Committee earlier this month, Acree struggled answering questions about the transit system and its looming financial challenges during a tense hearing.

Johnson pulled back a council vote Wednesday on the Acree pick, saying he wanted to “give people more time to have inquiry.”

The former nominee described the aldermen who resisted his nomination as “so-called allies” who are “enemies of African American advancement and empowerment” in an interview with the Tribune Friday.

“These people, they mince every word you say, everything you do. I don’t need that. I can find a better use of my time as a civil rights leader and as a pastor,” he said.

The RTA is responsible for oversight of Metra, Pace and the Chicago Transit Authority. Board positions generally pay $25,000 a year and require monthly board meetings.

Ald. Scott Waguespack, 32nd, and Ald. Andre Vasquez, 40th, were the lone votes against Acree’s appointment in committee. They later cited the pastor’s lack of transportation experience to explain their opposition.

But Johnson appeared to stick by Acree as recently as Wednesday, when he said after the council meeting that he still supported the pastor’s nomination.

“All of my nominations, whether they are commissioners, other appointments, we are batting one thousand. We are,” Johnson said when asked about withdrawing the Acree nomination. “The best and brightest, the people who are most connected to the pain, who have solutions.”

Acree called Johnson Thursday night to inform him he would no longer pursue the nomination, but wholeheartedly supports the mayor’s administration, the pastor said. A Johnson spokesperson did not immediately respond when asked about Acree’s decision Friday morning.

Acree faced tough questions during his early May committee testimony, which he labeled an “interrogation.” During the questioning, he described himself as a community leader eager to bring more resources to disinvested neighborhoods on the South and West sides. But he also gave eyebrow-raising responses when presented with specific questions about transit.

When asked when he last rode Chicago Transit Authority buses and trains, Acree answered that he took them as a kid going to school.

“As a man, I don’t have to use CTA. I’m fortunate to have a car,” he said. “But I use the CTA often when I come downtown because, even though I am a working pastor, these prices, parking tickets are super high.”

Later, he was asked about the staggering $730 million budget shortfall facing the region’s transportation agencies, a well-publicized crisis approaching as federal COVID-19 relief funds start running out.

“Well, No. 1, this is my first time hearing about a $735 million shortfall, so I would not want to respond to that today without doing the research,” Acree said.

Acree said Friday that the answer was a misstatement that came long into his hearing, but admitted not knowing the exact number.

“I did not know the specific, I’ll give you that,” he said. “But there’s always a fiscal cliff with RTA.”

He argued that the pushback he received that ultimately led to his decision to not pursue the position has instead prevented the work of racial equity.

“I thought it’d be a golden opportunity for me to speak up to bring resources back to the South and West Side,” he said. “These people are supposed to be allies. It’s sad. You got to drain the swamp in a Democratic city.”

He added that few people on the various boards that govern Chicago would live up to the “unprecedented” scrutiny he faced as someone without transit experience.

“If this was the new standard, we’d have to vacate all of the boards — even the vaunted and sacred City Council.”

Vasquez on Friday said he showed Acree the questions he planned to ask an hour before the committee meeting where the nominee struggled with his responses. “It’s unfortunate that Rev. Acree was put in the position he was by the Johnson administration not prepping him for the committee hearing and then pulling his item off the agenda in the City Council meeting,” Vasquez said.

In a statement Friday, the RTA said it “defers to the appointing authorities” and “welcomes a diversity of opinion on the Board of Directors.”

Acree’s nomination and withdrawal came as public transit has faced significant challenges, including the looming budget cliff and frustrations about CTA’s ability to provide frequent, reliable, clean and safe service. The challenges have put a spotlight on the future of transit and its leadership, and lawmakers are weighing a proposal in Springfield that would merge the RTA with CTA, Metra and Pace, effectively eliminating the agencies as separate entities.

CTA President Dorval Carter has been in the hot seat as public officials including Gov. J.B. Pritzker have weighed in on his leadership.

In the City Council, a resolution authored by Vasquez calling for Carter to be fired gained support from 29 aldermen, a majority of the 50-member body. Opponents of the effort used a procedural maneuver to stall its progress, likely delaying a vote on it for months.

Ald. William Hall, 6th, said the CTA “needs a complete overhaul,” but said the resolution is a deeply unfair effort to scapegoat and embarrass Carter.

“I would never stand in line to see a public humiliation and a public lynching of someone who does nothing wrong,” he said.

jsheridan@chicagotribune.com

Construction will begin this summer on the Western station and is expected to last through late 2025, CTA officials said, without providing a specific start date. During that time, weekend daytime Brown Line service will at times be cut between Kimball, at the end of the line, and Western, the agency said.

Details about when service will be cut will be made public beforehand, when plans are finalized, the CTA said.

Construction will include a new space and canopy for passengers waiting for buses at the station. The main entrance of the station will get new ADA-compliant doors, the tracks will be painted, platforms rehabilitated, the roof replaced and platform canopy repaired. Sidewalks will be replaced in front of the station, and lighting nearby upgraded.

Inside the station, a section of the Berlin Wall on display will be highlighted by new accent lighting, the CTA said. The station floors, walls, elevator cabs, stairs and customer service kiosk will also undergo work.

Along with the service interruptions, bus stops will be relocated while work is underway on the bus turnaround area.

In a statement, Ald. Matt Martin, 47th, said his constituents had been calling for years for updates to the station, and the work would complement a rebuilding of the plaza and parking lot next to the station.

In 2023, riders got on the train at the Western station more than 695,000 times, out of 10.5 million entries across the Brown Line outside the Loop. The line — which runs from Albany Park to Lincoln Square, Lakeview, Lincoln Park and downtown — is among the busier CTA train lines, though it doesn’t provide as many rides as the bustling, 24-hour Red and Blue lines.

In October, a Tribune analysis of CTA train service cuts found weekday Brown Line schedules had been slashed more than any other train line compared with prepandemic: by 32%.

“As we continue the work of increasing ridership systemwide, our goal is to make capital improvements that will be appreciated by current bus and rail customers and encourage new riders to utilize the system,” CTA President Dorval Carter said in a statement.

The Peterson/Ridge station, on the Union Pacific North Line, is expected to open May 20. Metra will also boost weekday service on the line when the station opens, adding trains during morning and evening peak periods in an effort to fill gaps in rush-hour service and reduce crowding on some trains, the rail agency said.

The new $27 million station, which broke ground in November 2021, came in about $5 million more and a year later than expected when construction began. They were the latest delays for the project, which had been discussed for more than a decade as previous Illinois budget issues held up state funding that had been allocated to the project from a 2009 bond program. Then the project needed engineering work and ran into delays getting city permits, Metra has previously said.

Metra attributed the construction expense and most recent delay to “longer COVID-related lead times” and supply chain challenges that affected the ability to get needed materials.

The new station, along tracks that run west of the intersection of North Ridge and West Peterson avenues, will have two six-car platforms that extend over Peterson so passengers can board from either side of the street. Two shelters will have on-demand heating.

The station will also have paid parking spaces, ADA-compliant parking, bike parking and an access drive with a cul-de-sac turnaround and pickup and drop-off areas.

As the Edgewater station is set to open, Metra is continuing work on a new station in Auburn Gresham on the Rock Island line. The Auburn Park station, also long discussed and tied up in previous state budget issues like the Peterson/Ridge station, broke ground in June 2022. It will serve 79th Street, filling a gap on the line between 87th Street in Gresham and 35th Street in Bronzeville.

When construction began, the project was expected to cost $35 million and be finished around the end of 2024. The project is now expected to cost $42.6 million, and wrap up in early 2026.

Metra said the reasons for the extra time and costs are similar to the COVID-19 and supply chain issues that affected the Edgewater station.

They never made it.

About 10 minutes into their CTA train ride from Skokie, there was a “boom,” he told the Tribune, as their Yellow Line train slammed into a snowplow on the tracks ahead. Then panic, mayhem and screaming.

He and his family were thrown from their seats as riders went flying through the car, he recalled. He struck his head. His wife’s face hit a pole, and his daughter was flung into a panel near the train’s door.

The stroller with his twin grandchildren, at that time almost 2, was thrown up in the air and tipped onto its side. The twins were bruised, but escaped worse harm because they had been strapped securely in the stroller at the insistence of their grandmother, Helmer said.

In the months since the crash, questions have lingered for Helmer.

“We certainly would like to see some answers as to why this happened before we get back on any of these trains,” he said.

Six months after the Nov. 16 crash, which left more than a dozen people injured and closed the Yellow Line for seven weeks, few answers have emerged about what went wrong and how the crash could have been prevented.

The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating and has yet to officially determine the cause, though the agency has said it is gathering information about the signal and braking systems, reviewing CTA practices and examining “organic material” on the tracks. The NTSB also has not issued any urgent safety recommendations to the CTA, which the agency can do during an investigation.

NTSB investigations can often take a year or two. While the agency’s work continues, CTA officials have said they cannot discuss much about the investigation publicly.

Shortly after 10:30 that Thursday morning, as the Yellow Line train approached the Howard station near the border of Chicago and Evanston with 30 passengers aboard, it rear-ended a “snow-fighter” track-plowing train that was on the tracks for scheduled training. At least 16 people were taken to hospitals after the crash, three of them critically injured, according to a preliminary NTSB report. Initial reports from first responders had indicated 23 people were taken to hospitals.

Seven CTA employees were among those injured in the crash: six on the snowplow, and the operator of the passenger train. Two of the employees have returned to work, the CTA said. The head of the union that represents rail employees, Pennie McCoach, said the operator of the train has not yet returned.

The crash left the Yellow Line, also known as the Skokie Swift, closed for weeks while the CTA worked to ensure the safety of the line, examined its train system and conducted testing. Since then, the CTA has lowered maximum speeds on the Yellow Line from 55 mph to 35 mph, with speeds in the area of the collision lowered to 25 mph.

The crash also caused about $8.7 million in damages to equipment and sparked multiple lawsuits, including one filed by Helmer and his family.

It’s the latest challenge for CTA President Dorval Carter, who has been in the hot seat as complaints mount over the transit agency’s ability to provide frequent, reliable and comfortable service.

And for Helmer and his attorney, it has led to six months of questions and frustrations about how the crash happened.

“Why is it — and we’ve all read about the CTA and what’s evolved over the years — but how could (technology to identify obstructions on the tracks and stop the train) not have been in place, also as a system to prevent this collision?” his attorney, Richard Pullano, asked.

In a mid-December preliminary report, the NTSB found the train’s operator hit the brakes as soon as the signal system, which controls train movements, commanded the operator to stop. The operator then spotted the snowplow ahead and applied the emergency brakes on the train, made up of two, nearly decade-old 5000-series cars, which is CTA’s most common railcar model. A system designed to reduce sliding by the train’s wheels while braking had activated.

The operator knew the snowplow would be on the tracks for training, but didn’t know exactly where, federal investigators wrote.

NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy has previously said new signal systems have to allow for a longer train stopping distance than the current Yellow Line system, which the CTA said dates back to the mid- to late 1970s. Now, the Yellow Line system is configured to allow trains to stop in 1,780 feet or less. The train operator received a “stop” command from the system about 2,150 feet from the snowplow, the NTSB has said, but the train failed to stop in time.

Homendy has also said there was residue on the tracks and that the train’s wheels slipped as the operator tried to brake, and the NTSB is examining “organic material” on the tracks that can include contaminants such as leaf debris.

The agency is continuing to investigate the design and configuration of braking and signal systems and other factors, NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said recently. The agency is also reviewing CTA operations and protocols.

Mark Walbrun, a retired transportation engineer who did not work for the CTA, said transportation agencies generally use braking algorithms to determine how long a vehicle needs to stop based on factors like the weight of the vehicle, speed and curves in its path.

It’s not unusual for rail signal systems to remain in use for decades. But braking algorithms are often updated when an agency starts using new equipment, or if an issue is spotted during routine maintenance, he said.

“It’s not necessarily dangerous, if you know about it,” he said.

The CTA said signals on its lines vary in age, but some lines have signals of the same generation as the Yellow Line. They have been examined and “validated to be in line with the typical stopping distances of our modern systems,” the agency said in a statement this week.

The CTA had not received reports of train wheels slipping before the crash, the agency said. It generally receives a “small number” of reports of wheels slipping on the system, usually in winter when the rails can be icy.

The CTA said the agency has no plans to upgrade the Yellow Line system, but has upgraded other lines in recent years, like the Blue Line between Jefferson Park and O’Hare International Airport. The ongoing rebuild of a section of the north side of the Red Line also includes signal upgrades.

The NTSB has previously recommended the CTA install a more robust type of train signal system, after a 2014 crash when a Blue Line train pulling into the station at O’Hare crashed through a barrier at the end of the tracks and landed on top of an escalator.

The Federal Transit Administration has not mandated that public transit systems adopt the more robust system, and the CTA has estimated it would cost nearly $2.5 billion.

The upgrades and purchase of new railcars laid the groundwork for further modernization of the train control system, the CTA said, but they didn’t amount to an upgrade of the type recommended by the NTSB in the past. There is no federal funding to implement the more robust type of signal system, the CTA said.

Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen hopes to sit down with Carter in the coming months to discuss a detailed plan to replace equipment in the next few years. Carter has, so far, been responsive to Van Dusen whenever he has reached out, but Van Dusen knows Carter has myriad priorities and wants to ensure the Yellow Line isn’t forgotten.

Keeping the Yellow Line up and running — and assuring residents that it’s safe — is a priority for the mayor. There is a station adjacent to the Illinois Science and Technology Park, a large center of employment in the village, and the train line features heavily in efforts to redevelop a nearby commercial area. It’s a key connector to jobs and schools in Chicago, and to the city’s two ballparks.

Ridership seems to be slowly returning since the Yellow Line reopened in January, Van Dusen said. Though trains are moving at lower speeds along the line, the speed restrictions are important to ensure safety, he said.

“We’re very proud of the Swift, and I want to be able to assure the public,” he said. “And part of that would be, it would appear that some of the equipment was aged, and it’s time to do some replacement.”

In the meantime, in the months since the crash, effects have lingered for Helmer and his family.

He and his wife were visiting their daughter from upstate New York to celebrate Thanksgiving and family birthdays when they found themselves thrown through the train car, Helmer said. It was his first CTA train trip.

“It was a family excursion that went wrong,” he said.

Immediately after the crash, passengers tried to help each other, Helmer said. He recalled one passenger moving through the train, trying to help and assess others, including Helmer. The operator of the train was “clearly in extreme pain and in a bad way,” he said, and some passengers tried to help.

Once electricity had been turned off to the tracks, first responders arrived, he said. Most of the passengers could walk, and they descended a ladder from an open train door to track level, he said. Then they were triaged.

He, his wife, his daughter and her twins were sent to various hospitals after the crash. His son-in-law, who was not on the train with them, helped coordinate the family and get everyone back home later that night, Helmer said.

In the months since, the family has spent time healing from physical, mental and emotional injuries, he said. He was thankful and impressed by the responders who came to aid the people on the train, but from the CTA, he wants answers about how and why the crash happened.

“It was bad enough as it was, and certainly there were some people who were more seriously injured than my family,” he said. “But when I think about what my family went through and had to deal with, I have flashes of anger about it. Because this never should have happened.”