(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — The head a city transit worker union says this week’s incident of a train operator being pushed onto a the tracks is another example of why the CTA needs its own police force and conductors on trains.
Ed Dixon, president of the Amalgamated Transit Workers Union Local 308 that represents CTA train operators, said the member pushed on the Granville station tracks Monday night is still “mentally distraught” and sore.
Dixon said if the CTA had its own 100-person police department or a conductor — or both — the train operator might not have been pushed onto the tracks.
The CTA should not have to rely on Chicago police to monitor the transit system, he said.
“Most of the guys from the Chicago Police Department that has the detail for CTA — most of those guys are working overtime,” Dixon told WBBM Newsradio. “Most people that are working on their days off, they’re not trying to do too much.”
Dixon says the unarmed security officers being deployed across the system do not offer any form of protection to riders or CTA employees.
He said other major cities have their own transit police departments. The CTA should return to having its own, something it hasn’t had since 1979 when Mayor Jane Byrne disbanded the CTA police force, Dixon said.
CTA workers should not have to worry about their safety when they go to work each day, he said.
“You come to work to do a job and then something happens out of the ordinary. It’s a little scary.”
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