Local youth participants of the Autism Transit Project recognized for sharing their voices to create a more welcoming and inclusive transit system
The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) today celebrated its ongoing partnership with the Autism Transit Project, by converting its rail system to serve as a platform for community connection and awareness. Throughout the month of April, the sweet voices of 19 local youth and young who recorded rail system audio announcements will play across the rail system for World Autism Acceptance Month.
“This is a very special partnership, and we are honored to a participate in such a meaningful initiative that honors the courage and determination of these young ones and others with autism spectrum disorder (ASD),” CTA Acting President Nora Leerhsen said. “This month, we are not only celebrating these young individuals who are helping make Chicago more inclusive with their station announcements, but a larger community that loves the CTA and public transit like no other.”
Leerhsen was joined by Jonathan Trichter of The Autism Transit Project in presenting the youths with personalized CTA signage as a token of appreciation for lending their voices to the rail system. The youths were also given the opportunity to spend some time at the modernized Damen Green Line station meeting CTA employees and taking pictures before hopping aboard a private train ride offering CTA facts and historical notes presented by some of the agency’s finest rail personnel.
“Children with autism sometimes fixate on feats of everyday mechanical engineering,” said Jonathan Trichter, founder of The Autism Transit Project. “This is especially true of trains and transit systems—something frontline CTA workers see every day. In addition, children with autism may not come to language naturally. Instead, they grab on to phrases they hear in places they love and use them to start communicating with the world around them. It is therefore not unusual for the first full sentence a child with autism utters to be a transit service announcement. This is why this project is special. And during Autism Acceptance Month, the CTA is honoring the special relationship they have with these children.”
This group of youths were given the opportunity to record some of CTA’s public announcements due to their deep love for transit. Riders can hear these public announcements all throughout the month at stations along all eight rail lines. Last year, over 100 children and six major transit agencies across the country, including the CTA, participated.
Many young people with autism spectrum disorder ("ASD") are strongly drawn to trains and public transit. The Autism Transit Project is a non-profit 501c3 whose mission it is to spread acceptance and awareness that people with autism are worthy and valuable parts of their societies—different perhaps, but no less.