Good afternoon, Charles. 8/6/2021
Thank you for contacting the CTA. Per federal mandate, state order and CTA Rules of Conduct, CTA customers are required to wear masks/face coverings while on CTA vehicles or properties. With thousands of trains and buses running each day, and hundreds of thousands of customers boarding and alighting, engaging each and every rider is impractical. Like transit agencies across the country, CTA is focused on informing and reminding customers that masks are required on CTA property. Everywhere a customer goes on our system—buses, trains, stations—they will find reminders about the mask requirement.
In advance of the Lollapalooza weekend, CTA took extra steps to make sure customers were aware of the mask/face covering requirement. Those extra steps to promote awareness and encourage cooperation with the mask mandate, included:
Installing an entirely new, additional set of signage reminding riders that masks continue to
be required. Again, these new signs were distributed systemwide and were a complement to the
signage already in place.
In addition, we placed mask announcement reminders on all digital screens at and near our rail
stations and bus shelters.
We heavily promoted mask-wearing on all CTA social media channels.
Throughout the weekend, our bus and train operators – as well as our station customer service
assistants - made manual announcements to customers to remind them of the mask requirement.
Those announcements were in addition to automated messages we continued to run on all trains and buses, and at stations.
Unfortunately, we’ve seen far too many examples from our transit peers across the country in which transit employees have been assaulted and attacked after asking customers to put on a mask. CTA puts the safety of its employees as a top priority, and will not ask them to risk their personal safety to confront someone not wearing a mask.
As we continue our ongoing education and awareness efforts, there is also a level of personal accountability and common-sense behavior we expect from customers. Following the guidance of public-health experts is important, and the same behaviors people have learned and exhibit at grocery stores, food pickup, retail stores and other public spaces (wearing masks, practicing social distancing, etc.) also apply to transit. We continue to look for additional, strategic ways to make the mask requirement and other health guidance clear to everyone.
In addition to our education and awareness efforts, we have also distributed more than 35,000 Travel Healthy kits to riders, which contain a reusable cloth mask, 2 oz. bottle of hand sanitizer and tips for traveling safely. Free masks are also available on all trains and buses, and at stations across the system.
More information about everything we’re doing to provide a healthy, safe commute for customers and employees can be found at transitchicago.com/coronavirus.
CTA FEEDBACK TEAM
CTA Response to Memorandum regarding Failure to Enforce Mask Mandate During Event
The People's Response Network (PRN) to Covid-19
