Overview
- The Federal Transit Administration announced a Safety Management Inspection of the Illinois Department of Transportation over its oversight of the Chicago Transit Authority, citing repeated and persistent deficiencies.
- IDOT is ordered to complete 11 corrective actions that incorporate eight earlier audit findings as enforceable requirements plus three new findings, with expedited timelines throughout spring and summer.
- Per the federal letter, IDOT must name a point of contact within three business days, and the inspection will start following a kick-off meeting between state and federal officials.
- The inspection will evaluate how the state identifies safety risks, reviews investigations, oversees CTA’s Roadway Worker Protection program, challenges CTA analyses, verifies corrective actions, and intervenes when performance falls short.
- FTA reserved further enforcement options, including requiring IDOT to use federal funds to fix safety problems, as prior federal warnings also threatened up to $50 million in CTA grants; Gov. J.B. Pritzker criticized the move as a sham investigation.