Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart is weighing whether a unified transit police force should take over policing across the CTA, Metra and Pace—an idea he calls the “easiest” option, even as he warns it could be expensive and warns against runaway costs he has seen e
For Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, the question isn’t whether violence on public transit is a problem—it’s who should be responsible for stopping it.
Dart’s office typically does not police transit systems, but his deputies have begun patrolling CTA trains to address “stubbornly high violence.” Over the last two and a half months, his team made hundreds of arrests and issued thousands of warnings.
Now, Dart is personally leading a task force that could recommend a major restructuring: creating a unified police force to patrol the CTA, Metra and Pace.
He frames the idea as straightforward—an “easiest” option—because the current patchwork leaves enforcement fragmented. Dart is clear that whatever his working group eventually recommends. it will not be business as usual: policing is split between Metra police. Chicago police on the CTA. and many suburban police departments responding to Pace.
Still, this is not a quick fix. Dart says the process is early and that a recommendation would come after extensive conversations, with his working group set to advise the Northern Illinois Transit Authority, which was created under the state’s newly enacted transit law.
And the financial stakes are hard to ignore. Dart says creating a new police force would be among the largest changes to how transit operates in Chicago—and he warns it would take a lot of money.
He’s also looking past the immediate debate to what might happen after a decision is made. Dart is worried about “runaway costs” he has seen in Los Angeles, which recently formed its own transit police force.
In the meantime, the patrols and arrests keep going. Dart’s deputies are already working on CTA trains, and the task force decision will determine whether that localized response becomes something bigger—one transit-wide policing model for Chicago’s commuters across the region’s systems.
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