Public access to CTA bathrooms will keep L stations, trains clean

In April 2023, CBS Chicago reported the presence of what witnesses called an "open-air restroom" at the Howard station on the CTA Red Line. Though this is an extreme example, any average CTA rider has become all-too familiar with the stench of urine and feces on the train. So what can we do about it?

Perhaps if we gave people a designated place to do their business, it would keep them from urinating and defecating on platforms and trains. It’s not rocket science. Providing people a place to relieve themselves with dignity and keeping human waste out of public spaces are the two main purposes of bathrooms. The obvious answer is to open and maintain public restrooms within the Chicago Transit Authority's 146 L stations.

Younger Chicago residents might be surprised to learn that most of the CTA’s stations have toilets. Public access to these facilities ceased in the 1970s due to "concerns over security" and a lack of funding for maintenance.

The issue of human waste on CTA trains is directly associated with the city’s homelessness crisis. Many unhoused Chicagoans simply have nowhere else to go, especially during the winter months when the harsh cold forces them on the trains. And to their credit, the CTA has already espoused a compassionate approach to handling unhoused riders. But when it comes to people doing their business on trains and subway platforms, the CTA has said, “[t]his kind of behavior is unacceptable, and individuals violating the regulations can be fined by Chicago Police."

Instead of getting the police involved, the city could fight this sanitation problem by providing us access to public bathrooms.

Some might say that the city doesn’t have the money to employ enough CTA sanitation workers. But the truth is that public transit employees are already being forced to clean up human waste. Whatever sanitation and/or safety hazards plagued those bathrooms in the 1970s are now filling the trains themselves. Opening bathrooms to the public would help to mitigate this problem while providing riders a more dignified place to do their business. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority already maintains public bathrooms in many New York City subway stations. If New York can do it, then why can’t we?

Nathan Weakley, frequent CTA rider and communications student, University of Illinois Chicago

Ramp up efforts to protect police officers

I am beyond frustrated. I am angry. And frankly, I am disgusted.

Last week, a parolee was charged with attempting to kill four Chicago police officers. Four officers targeted in a single incident — not by a first-time offender, not by someone who slipped through the cracks, but by a man already known to the system. A man who had been given another chance. A man who was out.

And here we are again.

How many times does this have to happen before someone in Springfield or Washington stands up and says enough? How many close calls before we stop pretending this is just part of the job?

I spent my career in law enforcement. I understand risk. I understand that policing is dangerous work. But being ambushed by repeat violent offenders who should never have been in a position to attack officers again is not "the job." It is a failure of leadership — plain and simple.

What makes this worse is the absolute legislative paralysis surrounding officer safety. At every level of government, elected officials talk endlessly about supporting law enforcement, yet they refuse to pass even the most basic protections. They hold news conferences, issue statements and post on social media. But when it comes time to write laws that actually safeguard the men and women wearing the badge, they do nothing.

At the federal level, proposals to strengthen penalties for assaults on police officers have stalled for years. There is still no clear, forceful statute that guarantees severe, certain consequences for targeting an officer. That silence is deafening.

In Illinois, the inaction is just as alarming. Lawmakers will debate anything and everything —except legislation that would keep violent offenders from cycling back onto the streets to attack officers again. They refuse to revisit sentencing. They refuse to tighten parole oversight. They refuse to confront the revolving door that officers see every single day.

Most troubling is the public’s growing numbness. When officers are shot at, assaulted or ambushed, it barely registers anymore —as if the men and women in uniform signed up to be disposable. They did not. If we value public safety, protecting law enforcement must become policy, not just rhetoric. Four officers nearly lost their lives. That should shake this state and this nation to its core.

Tom Weitzel, retired chief, Riverside police 

Oil toil

Gas prices in my area spiked 25% in one week. This is all blamed on the war in Iran. What happened to "Drill, baby, drill?' Iran mostly exports oil to China. Donald Trump refuses to release any of our strategic stockpile, which should have plenty, as he promised oil independence. What about all of the free oil he stole from Venezuela? He claims this price spike is only temporary, and if we don't buy that then we are all “fools.” The fools are the ones who believe him.

John Farrell, DeKalb

Art of destruction?

First, cigar-chomping philistines came for Adler & Sullivan's Chicago Stock Exchange Building in 1972, though allowing the Trading Room and entry arch to end up at the Art Institute of Chicago. Now, Chablis-sipping philistines want to finish the job by possibly moving the Trading Room elsewhere to make way for an expansion. Watch for a column to "accidentally" knock over the arch in the process.

Douglas Bukowski, Berwyn