The Chicago Transit Authority submitted its long-awaited transit safety plan to the Federal Transit Administration on Tuesday, beating the March 19 deadline by fifteen days and describing the submission as a “proactive step forward” that “demonstrates the CTA’s ongoing commitment to the safety and security of riders, employees, transit infrastructure, the concept of transit itself, and the broader notion of getting places without incident.” The FTA, which had threatened to withhold up to $50 million in federal funding if the plan was not received, confirmed receipt of the document and said it would take “some weeks” to review. A spokesperson declined to say how many weeks. When pressed, she said “weeks, plural.”

The 214-page plan, titled A Framework for Enhanced Transit Security: A Comprehensive, Phased, Stakeholder-Informed, Rider-Centered, Data-Driven, and Continuously Evolving Approach to Safety Excellence on the Chicago Transit Authority System, outlines a 27-point strategy that CTA President Dorval Carter called “the most ambitious safety initiative in the agency’s recent history.” The document includes sections on officer deployment, platform lighting improvements, interagency data sharing, and a nine-page “philosophical preamble” on what the agency described as “the nature of safe transit in a complex urban environment.” The preamble does not reference any specific train lines. It does quote Aristotle twice.

The plan arrives after a year in which aggravated assaults and batteries on the CTA system reached a 24-year high, a statistic the agency acknowledged in section four of the document under the header “Context.” The section notes that crime increased by 33% over the comparable period and attributes this to “a complex interplay of post-pandemic social dynamics, economic displacement, system-wide resource constraints, and other factors.” The phrase “other factors” appears eleven times in the document. Asked what “other factors” referred to specifically, a CTA spokesperson said the phrase was “meant to be inclusive.”

Among the plan’s centerpiece proposals is what the agency is calling the Transit Rider Interaction Program, described as a new initiative in which uniformed police officers will be stationed on trains and platforms with instructions to “proactively engage” with the riding public. The FTA had previously criticized this program as insufficiently staffed, a concern the new plan addresses by adding the word “substantially” to its officer-deployment targets. “We are committed to substantially increasing officer presence,” the plan states in section nine. An appendix defines “substantially” as “meaningfully more than before, taking into account available resources, collective bargaining constraints, and weather.” The appendix does not define “meaningfully.”

A second major initiative involves signage. Beginning in the second quarter, the CTA plans to install 400 new signs across the system reading “SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING” in a font described in the plan as “authoritative but approachable.” Current signage, which also reads “SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING,” will be replaced with the new signs because, a CTA communications official explained, “the new ones are bigger.” When asked whether bigger signs were expected to produce a measurable reduction in violent incidents, the official said the signs were “one component of a multi-component strategy” and that it would be “premature to isolate the signage impact.” The plan does not include a projected signage impact metric, though it does include a budget line for “Signage (Enhanced)” totaling $1.2 million.

The FTA’s response was measured. In a statement, the agency said it “welcomes the CTA’s submission and looks forward to a thorough review process,” adding that it would evaluate the plan against “federal safety management benchmarks” before making any funding decisions. The statement noted that the CTA had previously submitted a safety improvement framework in 2023, a safety enhancement roadmap in 2024, and what was described at the time as a “comprehensive safety reset” in early 2025, and that the FTA was “encouraged by the continued momentum.” The agency did not say what had changed between those documents and this one. Neither did the CTA.

The City Council’s Committee on Transportation and Public Way held an emergency hearing on the matter Wednesday morning, during which eleven alderpersons asked variations of the question “are we sure this is going to work” and the CTA’s chief safety officer answered each with a variation of “we are confident in the framework.” Ald. Felix Cardenas of the 31st Ward asked whether the plan included any provisions for mental health intervention on platforms. The chief safety officer said yes, in section 17. Ald. Cardenas asked what section 17 said. The chief safety officer flipped to section 17, read it silently for a moment, and said it called for a “working group to explore best practices.” Ald. Cardenas said he had more questions. The committee chair noted they were out of time.

The plan is expected to be reviewed by the FTA over the coming weeks, plural. The $50 million in potentially withheld funding represents approximately 4% of the CTA’s annual federal subsidy, a figure the agency’s chief financial officer described as “significant,” “very significant,” and, at one point, “genuinely quite significant.” Ridership on the system declined an estimated 5% in January and February compared to the same period last year, a trend the CTA said it was “actively monitoring.” Asked if the monitoring had produced any findings, a spokesperson said the findings were “ongoing.”