A majority of the Chicago City Council has now signed onto a call for the ouster of Chicago Transit Authority President Dorval Carter Jr., but his future at the agency remains up in the air.
The resolution, which was to be introduced Wednesday by 40th Ward Ald. Andre Vasquez and 47th Ward Matt Martin, calls for Carter to either resign his post at the CTA, which he has held since 2015, or to be fired by Mayor Brandon Johnson or the CTA board.
“Be it resolved that we, the City Council of the City of Chicago…do hereby call upon Dorval Carter to resign his position as president of the Chicago Transit Authority, and be it further resolved that, absent such a resignation, we the city Council of the City of Chicago, call upon Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. J.B. Pritzker to name a new CTA president and publicly call upon the CTA Board to appoint them,” the resolution read.
The resolution cited poor working conditions, rider complaints and service issues within the agency.
Johnson has stood behind Carter in recent weeks, deflecting calls for the president’s ouster.
“It’s my job to determine the leadership of the CTA,” Johnson said. “If people want to be mayor, they should run for it.”
Transit
Pritzker said that there needs to be “new leadership,” but did not specifically call for Carter to be fired, according to CapitolFax.
Carter was appointed as the board’s president in 2015 by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel. He has been praised for his willingness to seek out government grants, but has been blasted for the agency’s decisions to cut service and for service reliability issues that leave passengers waiting long periods of time for trains and buses.
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He has also been criticized for not using the service and for not appearing more regularly before the council, something members rectified in Oct. 2023 when they passed an ordinance requiring quarterly updates from the CTA’s president.
Now, a total of 29 members of the City Council have signed onto a resolution calling for Carter’s ouster. The resolution was referred to the Rules Committee for further evaluation.
