Paige McCulloch-Burton had long been interested in driving a bus. Her grandfather worked as a CTA bus operator, and after earning her commercial driver’s license, she followed in his footsteps in February 2025. After just a few months on the job, McCulloch-Burton was physically attacked by a man who boarded the bus she was operating. CTA failures to maintain the onboard security system meant that police were unable to fully investigate the assault, records show. And McCulloch-Burton said the transit agency subsequently pushed her out of a job she loves after failing to properly accommodate and care for her post-attack. Now, she’s speaking out in hopes it will improve conditions for other operators. “I hope to see a change,” she said. “I hope to see CTA treat their employees more like family, because every day we get up and we put our lives on the line.” More context: On May 24, 2025, McCulloch-Burton was driving a bus on CTA’s #82 route, heading south on Homan Avenue. As she approached the stop at Jackson Boulevard, a man in a ski mask boarded the bus and physically assaulted her. When a CPD detective tried to obtain the surveillance camera footage after the attack, CTA security services told him the hard drive was “defective,” according to emails provided to WTTW News. “There was no video for the date and time of the incident,” the detective was told, prompting him to close the investigation into the assault, according to the emails. McCulloch-Burton said it took about a month to begin receiving workman’s comp payments from the transit agency. She says the injuries she suffered during the attack have left her in chronic pain and suffering from PTSD. In June 2026, she was no longer an employee of the CTA, a termination McCulloch-Burton learned about when a COBRA packet arrived in the mail in March of this year. When she called to confirm she’d been fired, McCulloch-Burton was told a letter had been sent to her in the mail. But she said she gets an email from USPS alerting her to which letters and packages she’ll receive each day, and never saw anything from CTA. Nora Leerhsen, CTA’s acting president, has frequently mentioned employee safety as one of the agency’s top priorities. The agency has touted a decrease in crime across the system, as well as the rollout of new Chicago Police Department and Cook County Sheriff’s missions on buses and trains and at stations and stops. But McCulloch-Burton still thinks the agency could do more, citing other recent violent attacks on the system that have drawn widespread attention.
