A federal directive issued Tuesday threatens to choke off Chicago Transit Authority funding unless the agency immediately boosts law-enforcement presence and reverses what federal officials call a years-long surge in violent crime and worker assaults on its buses and trains.
The order, issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration, follows the November 17 attack in which Lawrence Reed, a man with a long criminal history who was wearing an ankle monitor for a pending felony matter, allegedly set a 26-year-old woman on fire aboard a Blue Line train in the Loop. The case is one of countless headline-grabbing violent crimes aboard the city’s transit lines.
In a sharply worded letter to Governor JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson, FTA Administrator Marc Molinaro accused Chicago’s leaders of “neglecting” their responsibility to protect riders and workers…