The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is initiating a Safety Management Inspection (SMI) of the Illinois Department of Transportation’s (IDOT) State Safety Oversight (SSO) program for the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) rail transit system. The aim, it reported March 17, is “to identify the root causes of longstanding deficiencies in IDOT’s safety oversight.”
“CTA operates one of the largest combined heavy rail and bus transit systems in the United States, providing more than a million passenger trips each weekday across the City of Chicago and 35 surrounding suburbs, supported by a workforce of more than 11,000 employees,” the FTA wrote in a March 17 letter to IDOT Secretary Gia Biagi, explaining the basis of the SSI (download below). “Through FTA’s ongoing oversight of Special Directive 23-1, issued to IDOT on October 23, 2023 [to address staffing and other concerns]; FTA’s evaluation of IDOT’s response to FTA’s October 7, 2025 SSO audit; and FTA’s participation in the investigation of recent safety events at CTA, including a worker struck by a train on November 10, 2025, FTA has identified repeated and persistent deficiencies in IDOT’s oversight performance, including limited onsite presence, weak accident investigation governance, ineffective corrective action plan management, and minimal use of enforcement authority.”
FTA’s Office of Transit Safety and Oversight will conduct the safety investigation and assess how IDOT performs “critical safety oversight functions,” such as how IDOT:
- “Independently identifies, evaluates, and prioritizes safety risk;
- “Conducts and/or critically reviews safety event investigations, ensuring their sufficiency and thoroughness;
- “Exercises active and informed oversight of CTA’s Roadway Worker Protection (RWP) program;
- “Critically reviews and, where necessary, challenges CTA’s analyses and conclusions to ensure that safety risk is appropriately identified and mitigated;
- “Verifies the implementation and effectiveness of corrective actions; and
- “Takes timely and appropriate action to intervene when CTA’s safety performance is inadequate.”
The FTA, in its announcement, said it “will determine, based on the results of the inspection, whether additional enforcement actions, such as the issuance of additional Special Directives or other enforcement actions, are warranted.”
The FTA on March 17 also reported issuing Special Directive 26-1 (download below), requiring IDOT “to address known deficiencies in its oversight of CTA.”
“IDOT has not made sufficient progress in addressing long-term issues, including FTA’s findings from a recent audit,” the government agency said. “These deficiencies have allowed critical safety concerns to continue.”
“[T]o accelerate reforms of IDOT’s oversight of CTA,” FTA said the new Special Directive will:
- “Incorporate the eight findings from FTA’s safety audit of IDOT as immediately enforceable findings under this directive;
- “Establish specific required actions and expedited completion timeframes for IDOT to correct these deficiencies; and
- “Issue three additional findings and corresponding required actions where FTA has determined that further direction and enforcement are necessary to address ongoing safety risk at CTA.”
Meanwhile, CTA on March 10 reported submitting its Revised Security Enhancement Plan to the FTA in response to a Special Directive issued in December; it includes “a 75% increase in monthly system policing hours, aggressive crime reduction targets, and expanded social service support—bolstered by early data showing that crime reduction strategies implemented over the past three months are working.”
“In December, the FTA threatened to withhold up to $50 million in federal funding from the CTA unless it addressed crime — such as assaults against workers and riders — to its satisfaction, including by beefing up security staffing on public transit,” according to the Chicago Tribune, which noted that the FTA “rejected the CTA’s first crime reduction plan, submitted last year, calling it ‘materially deficient.’”
The Tribune reported on March 17 that “[i]t was not immediately clear … if the December special directive regarding crime was still active. A spokesperson for the FTA did not answer a question about whether the agency was satisfied with the CTA’s new safety plan.”
CTA Acting President Nora Leerhsen “said the agency had received notice that ‘the funds at risk will not be withheld from CTA at this time’ but would nevertheless continue to implement its new safety plan,” according to the newspaper.
“Through strong collaboration with our partners in law enforcement and social services, our comprehensive plan takes a holistic approach to security for those traveling on CTA,” Leerhsen told The Tribune.
