IL: Mayor Brandon Johnson wants CTA smoking crackdown after aldermen’s call

Mayor Brandon Johnson promised Tuesday to crack down on smoking on Chicago Transit Authority trains and buses, latching on to an effort already underway in the City Council.

Johnson signed an executive order directing city departments to send social workers onto the transit system and City Hall lobbyists to push for more safety funding in Springfield.

The mayor said he was “fed up” and signaled a hesitant openness to ramping up police enforcement. But he shared few specifics on what anti-smoking efforts will look like and how much they will cost during an afternoon news conference.

“This is unacceptable. As a city, we’re better than this,” Johnson said during a City Hall news conference. “There has to be a deeper level of accountability. And when it comes to the safety and the well-being of working families in this city, I’m going to do whatever is necessary to bring the full force of government.”

Johnson cited experiences inhaling secondhand smoke as an asthmatic to underscore the push. He pledged to send social work teams onto the system, launch anti-smoking public awareness campaigns and start “an assessment of other resources” that city departments can use to deter CTA smoking.

Making the CTA safer will be critical to increasing ridership, up 11% last year after a pandemic nosedive, Johnson said.

“We cannot have visitors coming through O’Hare and being met with smoking and even other acts of violence,” he said. “Same thing goes for our most vulnerable population and those who rely upon public transportation.”

Asked if he would consider banning smokers from the train system, the mayor didn’t shy away from the heavy-handed response.

“That’s come up. We’re exploring every single option,” he said.

But he took a more cautious approach when asked if his crackdown would include more arrests and citations. The city issued over 6,300 smoking tickets on the CTA in 2023, he said.

“It’s not like the Police Department is not citing these individuals. It’s proven to not be enough, so that’s why we are taking a more holistic approach,” Johnson said.

Johnson’s executive order comes on the heels of a similar City Council push led by Ald. Bill Conway, 34th. Conway introduced a resolution calling for the CTA to “snuff out smoking” last month signed by a council majority.

The mayor did not contact Conway before moving ahead on his own crackdown effort, Conway said Tuesday. The downtown alderman said he was “happy” Johnson is taking the issue seriously, but urged the mayor to work with him.

Conway shared doubts about the effectiveness of Johnson’s plans. In lieu of public awareness campaigns and social worker outreach, the city should focus instead on data-driven law enforcement efforts, he said.

“We really need it to be done in a data-driven way,” Conway said. “I believe additional enforcement here will more than pay for itself in terms of ridership.”