Dear CTA customers:
As many of you know, Red and Purple Line service was disrupted for nearly six hours last night, the result of police activity near the CTA’s Wilson stop. Thousands of customers were impacted at the peak of the evening rush and throughout the evening.
CTA would like to thank you for your patience and understanding during a challenging situation.
According to news reports, four men were being sought for questioning by police yesterday afternoon. One was taken into custody, but the other three barricaded themselves in a building near the Wilson stop.
Shortly thereafter, Chicago Police asked CTA to suspend train service to the Wilson station as a safety precaution. CTA put into place bus shuttle service between the Addison and Berwyn stops, which was quickly extended to Belmont. About two dozen buses were diverted into shuttle service in the affected area to directly serve displaced Red and Purple Line riders and supplement regular bus service.
We also worked to communicate as effectively as possible with customers via announcements on trains and buses and at stations, as well as via social media and the text/email alerts for which many of you have signed up. We understand how much an incident disrupts your commute, and when these sorts of service interruptions arise, our main goal is to minimize the impact as much as possible.
We made every effort to ensure that you were given timely information and updates, directions and alternative travel options. We are always working to improve our response in situations like this. We value your feedback as well, and appreciate the helpful feedback many of you have provided in this regard.
If you haven't already, we encourage you to sign up for service alerts via the CTA website, and to follow our Twitter account, @cta. Last night the account sent more than 20 customer updates, and gained nearly 500 new followers. We know you are listening and we will continue to provide relevant information to you about all facets of CTA.
Thank you again, and if you have feedback to share you can contact us at feedback@transitchicago.com, via Twitter @cta, or via Facebook.