CTA President Dorval Carter speaks at a Chicago City Council meeting Feb. 27, 2024. (WTTW News)
Chicago Transit Authority President Dorval Carter took the fight to foes of his leadership – including the 29 alderpeople who signed on to a resolution calling for him to be replaced – at a lengthy City Council hearing on Thursday.
An ordinance approved in 2023 required Carter and top CTA staff to attend quarterly hearings about the state of the agency, of which Thursday’s was the second so far this year.
Carter, who has headed the transit agency since 2015, has faced widespread criticism since 2022 for skipping City Council hearings at a time when the agency faced even more significant struggles than it does currently with ghost buses and trains, safety, cleanliness and service levels.
He faced renewed fire after a Block Club Chicago story about the on-the-job death of bus operator Antia Lyons, who was reportedly unconscious behind the wheel for nearly an hour before CTA staff found her.
“My entire career has been dedicated to public transit in the city of Chicago, and I will always embrace the opportunity to discuss critical issues that are facing our agency, as well as the enormous successes that we have accomplished together,” Carter said in his 20-minute-long opening statement. “However, there’s been a great deal of recent discussion about me personally and about the leadership that I’ve exhibited at CTA.”
Carter described his childhood in Chicago riding the CTA, saying he remembers having to take the bus from the 95th Street Red Line station to play basketball with cousins who lived farther south, a problem he hopes to tackle for future Chicagoans with the Red Line extension to 130th Street that he’s championed.
While acknowledging that service wasn’t perfect before the pandemic, he said the global upheaval caused by COVID-19 threw him a curveball no leader could have been prepared for.
The CTA president said he’s faced harassment, social media accounts dedicated to mocking him, threats to him and his family, and racial epithets, with some people treating him as a mere “caricature.”
“I am painfully aware of the fact that I am the first African American president of the Chicago Transit Authority,” Carer said. “I am also painfully aware of the fact that the Chicago Transit Authority is primarily an African American agency. I recognize the implications that that may have in terms of how people may perceive our organization, or in some cases, how they may perceive our leadership.”
Carter also said he hasn’t seen other local transit agency leaders raked over the coals the way he has been, but said he’s stuck it out because of his commitment to the CTA, where he first worked as a staff attorney in the 1980s. Among the frequent criticisms have been of his more than $376,000 annual salary.
“I have been doing this work in spite of having opportunities to go elsewhere and in spite of having offers that were much more lucrative than the offers I have here,” he said. “I’ve been committed to this agency for almost my entire career. I think that I have done what I need to do to deserve the respect that should come with the position that I’m in.”
Despite his impassioned opening statement, several alderpeople, who were among those who joined the resolution calling for his resignation or firing, didn’t back off their critiques of his leadership.
Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th Ward) described herself as “disappointed” by Carter’s stance, Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd Ward) saying he was “taken aback”, and Ald. Nick Sposato (38th Ward) added that he was “troubled” by the lengthy statement.
Several of his critics did express empathy for the harassment and racism Carter has faced. Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th Ward), the chief sponsor of the resolution calling for Carter’s ouster, said “as people of color, it does feel a certain kind of way being on the receiving end of some of that feedback.”
Many on the City Council took the opportunity to express their support for Carter, including Ald. Stephanie Coleman (16th Ward), who said she appreciated his honesty and told Carter that 15 members of the council’s Black Caucus are behind him. She and others also praised Carter for helping to bring major federal funding to the CTA, including for the Red Line Extension and ADA accessibility efforts.
Coleman and Ald. David Moore (17th Ward) also praised Carter for avoiding layoffs at the agency during the global pandemic. The CTA received billions in federal relief funding to preserve its operating budget, as did transit agencies around the country.
Amid the fireworks, Carter, his staff and alderpeople did address a number of operational issues, including the current state of bus and rail hiring and operations.
Noting the CTA hired about 1,000 bus operators last year and some 400 so far this year, Carter said the agency is on track to having a “complete” bus operator workforce by the end of the summer with service back up to pre-pandemic levels. The CTA is also on track to add 200 more rail operators by the end of the year and restore train service to what it was in 2019, he said.
Carter also discussed the looming fiscal cliff facing CTA, Metra and Pace when federal relief money runs dry in early 2026. Telling alderpeople, “there isn’t an internal solution to a $500 million deficit.”
Carter called on council members to push for state lawmakers to come up with new money for Chicago transit and change a funding formula that has chronically underinvested in the CTA.
“We provide 80% of all the rides in the Chicago land area. We receive 48% of all the funding,” Carter said. “Do not let them basically re-up the same thing that they’ve done in the past because we will face the same problem all over again in the future.”
Ald. Lamont Robinson (4th Ward) also offered his support to Carter – and to Carter’s calls for council members to advocate for the CTA with General Assembly members.
“Hopefully, we can get 50 folks to sign on a letter to our friends in Springfield to do just that,” Robinson said.
Contact Nick Blumberg: [email protected] | (773) 509-5434 | @ndblumberg
