CTA's Holiday Homeless Harassment

(DECEMBER 2, 2008: For the latest updates on this story, please also see today's post here or browse my Homeless archive.)

During the past few weeks of waning daylight, waxing chill, and growing holiday spirit, the Chicago Transit Authority has been busy installing new signage at rail terminals on the CTA 'L'. The message on the signs--an example of which appears above--is clear, and a bit ominous: they demand an additional fare from any rider who wants to depart the terminal in the opposite direction from which they arrived.

The reason for the signs is a lot murkier. A rider arriving at a rail terminal and immediately departing again without exiting obviously hasn't made a constructive trip. However, it's hard to see who they'd be harming by such "continuous riding", as the CTA calls the practice.

Unless, of course, that rider is a homeless person. Any regular 'L' rider can attest to the wave of homeless Chicagoans who take to the warm interiors of CTA rail cars during the city's brutal winter months. Although generally a benign presence in the system, their downtrodden visual appearance--and in many cases odor--earns them the ire of many fellow, more fortunate passengers.

With that in mind, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why the CTA would hurry to install the aforementioned signage at the start of another Windy City winter. Of course, it isn't necessarily legal to single out homeless people and deny them service. (Just ask the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless about the numerous cases they've won against housing-status discrimination). Especially a public service like transit.

So last week, I contacted the CTA's public affairs department and asked them several specific questions regarding the new signs. I think the CTA's bureaucratically spin-meistered answers speak for themselves--and not in a good way. I present them below for your consideration, together with my own far more straightforward reactions upon reading them.

MIKE DOYLE: Why were the signs installed?

Really? When did this alleged crime wave of continuous riders crop up to the level that law enforcement needs an aid to keep the problem at bay? If such a problem actually exists, where's the harm in a customer not exiting at a given station? And for that matter, when exactly did the CTA ever tell riders about this policy in the first place?

Who directed the signs to be installed?

So CTA management thinks that threatening riders with expulsion from the 'L' system for violating an obscure policy that is rarely mentioned and even more rarely enforced is good customer service? Not that I'd be surprised--it's not like it would be the first, or second, or third, or even fourth time the agency's taken a similarly customer-unfriendly stance in recent memory.

Where have they been installed and where are they planned to be installed in the future?

Since CTA installed these signs first at 24-hour terminals, it would seem to me the agency thinks the problem is worse during late-night hours. Hmm, I wonder what type of rider would attempt to continuously ride during these hours...

Who chose these locations and why?

Didn't mean to steal your thunder there, CTA. So now you've got me wondering even more, just who are these late-night "violators" you're targeting here?

What is the legal basis for the signs? i.e. Is this rule officially codified in CTA's existing rules and regulations and if so, where? If you can cite and quote the codified rule in your answer that would be a great help.) If there is not legally codified rule, what is the basis for these signs and the rule posted on them?

Careful readers will note the CTA did not answer my question. I asked to learn what is the specific rule justifying the new signs. I was told that CTA has the authority to make its own rules. What I wasn't told was whether the CTA actually as a specific, codified rule barring continuous riding. Is it written into the agency's regulations that such riding constitutes "theft of service"? After a week of deliberation on my questions by the CTA, that one is still unanswered. And even if it was--what exactly are riders stealing if they take a trip to nowhere by not exiting at a terminal?

The sign says that riders must leave and re-enter the station and must pay another fare. However, riders with transfers left on their Transit or Chicago cards would not be paying an additional fare to enter. Also, riders missing their stop and ending up at terminals would seem to be affected as well.

"Theoretically customers missing their stop and having to back-ride to their missed station would also be included in the group this policy affects, although it is at the discretion of CTA personnel and the Chicago Police Department (CPD) to make an on-the-spot decision based on the circumstances of each customer."

Theoretically? You mean actually, don't you? Your rules and regulations are applied to all riders equally, aren't they? And for that to happen, to make this rule work and not apply it in a discriminatory manner, you'd have to toss off those "legitimate", transfer-bearing, stop-missing riders along with everyone else, right?

Wait...discretionary on-the-spot decisions? Now I'm confused. So you're saying CTA personnel may actually apply this rule in an unequal manner based on subjective decision about the "circumstances" of each rider? Exactly what "circumstances" are you referring to? And how is an inequitably applied rule not a discriminatory one?

As these signs are specifically written, riders with transfers would seem to be asked to pay additional fares that they have already paid and riders who have missed their stop would not be allowed to correct their mistake without paying another fare. How does the CTA intend to deal with those situations?

"Staff is advised to make sure they differentiate between such customers, and those who are continuously riding our transit system. However customers are required to pay an additional fare whenever they reach the end of a route and want to continue their travel. Customers with 30-Day, 7-Day or Visitor/Fun Passes must also re-insert (or touch to touchpad if a Chicago Card) their farecard into the farecard machine if continuing their travel or reversing their ride."

Wow. Just wow. You are actually telling me that the CTA has a standing policy for station employees to single classes of customers out to apply agency rules and regulations. You're saying that in practice, the universal "continuous riding" ban is not applied universally. So I'm led right back to ponder, who is it you're trying to single out here?

Homeless advocates may worry that the signage is aimed specifically at homeless riders (many of whom will have paid their fare to enter the system). Is that so?

You know, I used to be a grammar teacher, so I assure you that the word I'm about to use fits the CTA's answer perfectly: bullshit. Given the agency's above answers, they've simply lost me here. I'm supposed to believe that with a Chicago winter of high homeless ridership approaching, they casually decided to post these signs as a "customer service"? A "simple reminder"? I don't believe it. Not one word. I'm wracking my brain to try and figure out what reason on earth could these signs serve other than to give the CTA cover for kicking out homeless riders. Can anyone help me here?

How does the CTA intend to discern which riders are "continuously riding"? For example, a person appearing homeless may exit a train and attempt to board a train in the other direction at a terminal. How will the CTA, Securitas, or CPD determine whether the rider is a legitimate passenger?

It would seem to me that unless the CTA is intending to selectively target riders with this signage for expulsion from the system, which would obviously raise legal concerns, how can the CTA enforce this rule at all without forcing all riders--including those with legitimate reasons to be riding (missed stop, transfer on card, simply changed mind, etc.) to leave the system?

"If the individual refuses to do so, personnel will notify the CTA Control Center which in turn will inform the Chicago Police Department (CPD) that someone refuses to exit and asks for assistance. CPD will escort the individual from the train or bus. If the individual refuses to leave the train or bus, the person can be arrested per the discretion of the police."

Hands up, CTA riders, any one of you who in your entire life has ever seen a CTA customer--who wasn't homeless--asked to leave a train at a terminal? Anyone? Is that crickets chirping that I hear?

No matter the CTA's double-speak here, it's pretty clear who these new "continuous riding" signs are aimed at. I can't imagine a reasonable Chicagoan believing that homeless people are not the obvious and only target here.

What I can imagine is a reasonable person asking themselves why the CTA would implement such a policy in the first place. Not only why, but who--who is being harmed from continuous riding and, most importantly, who is committing the alleged harm? And I can also easily imagine any reasonable person coming up with the same answers I did.

In summary and in my opinion, the CTA has made a deliberate decision to target homeless customers for ejection from the system because they know they probably won't have the money to get back in, and is attempting to hide its discriminatory policy behind a universally applicable rule that the agency has no intention of applying universally. And that stinks.

The holidays are coming, and so is our annual two months of zero-degree January and February weather. At this time of year, a better use for CTA money and manpower would have been for the agency to create its own homeless outreach division (much like NYC Transit's longtime successful initiative) to help get those continuously riding customers into appropriate shelters instead of pawning the effort off on DHS. For a public agency in Chicago to instead threaten to throw homeless people out onto freezing streets in far-flung corners of the city without as much as caring wether they have the means to get to a shelter is unnecessary and cruel in equal measure.

If a heartless policy like that is the best the CTA can muster five weeks before Christmas, then I hope agency head Ron Huberman doesn't believe in Santa Claus. Because if the fat guy in the red suit does exist, if I were Huberman I'd expect to find nothing more than a fat lump of coal in my stocking come December 25th.

And deservedly so.