Identity Politics Trumps Public Safety On The Chicago Transit Authority
9th March 2026
If you ride the trains or buses in Chicago with any regularity, you don’t worry about microaggressions.
You worry about being maced, mugged, or shoved onto the tracks—or, in one grotesque recent case, set on fire.
That’s the lived experience of Chicagoans navigating the Chicago Transit Authority and Metra. Not academic theory. Not seminar-room sociology. Reality.
So naturally, when a modest pilot program is introduced allowing the transit agencies to suspend individuals who assault conductors, spit on drivers, punch random riders, or otherwise turn public transportation into a Thunderdome audition, what does the Chicago Tribune decide is the story?