Kirk Dillard Pushes for More Police on Chicago CTA

Kirk Dillard wants more cops on the CTA. And as chairman of the Regional Transportation Authority, he’s got the platform to push for it.

Dillard, writing publicly this week, urged Chicago officials not to overlook transit safety as the city weighs a police staffing study by Superintendent Larry Snelling that calls for hundreds of additional officers across the department. For daily riders packing onto Red Line trains or waiting at exposed bus stops in Englewood and Rogers Park, the argument isn’t abstract. It’s the commute.

Not good enough, Dillard said of the current staffing picture.

He pointed to New York City as a direct comparison, noting that the MTA has significantly more sworn law enforcement personnel assigned per rider than the CTA does. That gap matters. Chicago’s transit system serves roughly 1.5 million rides on a typical weekday, and security complaints have been a persistent problem for years. Riders have said it, advocates have said it, alderpersons have said it.

The newly passed Northern Illinois Transit Authority Act gives Dillard some ground to stand on. The law specifically calls for addressing law enforcement on a regional basis, which is a meaningful shift from how the city has handled things. The CTA operates in nearly 40 suburbs. Metra runs its own police force. Pace Suburban Bus relies on local municipal departments. That patchwork approach has never made sense for a system this interconnected.

Under the new act, the Cook County sheriff and Illinois State Police take on more direct responsibility for transit security. That’s not a small thing. It moves enforcement beyond the city limits debate and puts regional muscle behind the effort.

The CTA has already made some moves. The agency recently increased police hours, added sheriff’s deputies, rolled out more rigorous fare-card checks and installed high-barrier gates at select stations. Federal pressure played a role in that, Dillard acknowledged. Whether those steps hold and expand is the question.

Still, Dillard was careful not to frame this as a policing-only problem. That’s the right instinct. Safety on public transit is about what riders encounter the whole way through, from the entrance turnstile to the train car to the platform at their stop. Social services matter. Homelessness outreach matters. Cleanliness matters. ADA accessibility matters. Anyone who’s pushed a wheelchair onto a CTA bus with a broken ramp knows the last point isn’t rhetorical.

The Northern Illinois Transit Authority Act includes a transit ambassador program, modeled on approaches used in other major American cities, set to launch this summer at CTA and Metra stations. Ambassadors aren’t cops. They’re a different kind of presence, trained to de-escalate, connect people to services, and make riders feel like someone’s paying attention. Cities like San Francisco and Denver have used versions of this model. The results have been mixed but generally positive.

The thing is, Chicago’s transit problems don’t have a single fix. More officers help. Ambassadors help. Gates help. But none of it sticks without sustained investment and accountability from the top.

This letter, published by the Chicago Sun-Times, comes as Snelling’s staffing study is circulating through City Hall and the broader public debate about where Chicago puts its public safety resources. Dillard’s argument is that transit can’t be treated as secondary to the broader conversation. Riders in South Shore and Pilsen and Uptown don’t experience the CTA as a secondary concern. It’s how they get to work.

What happens next depends largely on whether the city and the RTA can coordinate under the new law without the usual jurisdictional turf fights that have slowed progress before. The Cook County sheriff’s increased role is promising. The state police engagement is promising. But promises and presence are different things.

Dillard has been around Illinois politics long enough to know the difference. He’s also a daily transit rider’s parent, which, depending on who you ask, might be the most relevant credential he brought to this argument.

Summer is coming. The ambassador program launches. The staffing debate continues. Riders on the Blue Line at midnight aren’t waiting for the policy to sort itself out.