Chicago Transit Authority Board Chair Lester Barclay, who has faced heat from transit advocates for criticizing Illinois’ transit reform legislation and for riding the system he oversees less frequently than they’d like, will continue to helm the transit agency’s governing board, members voted unanimously Tuesday morning.
Keeping Barclay on as chair was one of the first actions the new seven-member board took during the meeting, its first since a state-mandated reorganization took effect. Barclay still needs to be confirmed by the Illinois State Senate.
Barclay’s election as chair means the revamped boards of the CTA and commuter rail system Metra will both be led by people who have chaired their boards before. The Metra board last week elected Romayne Brown, a former CTA vice president, to serve as its chair. Brown had served as Metra board chair between 2020 and 2024.
Barclay, a family law attorney by trade, has served as chair of the CTA board since he was appointed to the post by former Mayor Lori Lightfoot in 2021. After the state’s transit funding legislation required a shake-up of the CTA’s governing board, Barclay was reappointed by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
The mayor also nominated Barclay to serve on the board of the new Northern Illinois Transit Authority, which now governs the CTA, Metra and Pace.
Barclay’s appointment drew sharp criticism from transit advocates who took issue with his past statements on transit reform, his leadership of the board under embattled former CTA president Dorval Carter, who stepped down under pressure last year, and for using the CTA infrequently.
Ultimately, aldermen approved Barclay’s appointments to both the CTA and NITA boards in a narrow vote. His terms on both boards run through Sept. 1, 2029.
“We have an opportunity to deliver transformative change,” Barclay said after he was selected as board chair Tuesday. “Change that gives our riders, our employees and communities the coordinated, safe, clean and accessible service they so deserve.”
Barclay, who thanked his fellow board members for their “vote of confidence,” added that his work on both the CTA and NITA boards would be “the catalyst for moving things forward in line with the legislation that was enacted.”
Barclay has defended himself against his detractors, arguing he is in fact on board with transit reform. He has also pushed back against implications that he doesn’t have transit experience, pointing to years he spent working as outside counsel for the CTA. In conversations with the Tribune this summer, he positioned himself as a supporter of transit-oriented development who believes in the power of mass transit to transform disinvested neighborhoods.
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Much of the criticism of Barclay this summer centered around an op-ed he wrote for the Tribune last fall in which he questioned the increased oversight NITA has over decision-making at the CTA.
He told the Tribune this summer that he was supportive of more regional coordination but simply had “concerns about how we were going to go about that.”
An Englewood native who attended Oberlin College before law school, Barclay also serves as the consul of Jamaica in Chicago. He’s also previously served as the chair of the CTA’s Citizens Advisory Board.
Transit advocates have repeatedly hammered Barclay for riding the CTA infrequently. During one confirmation hearing this summer, transit advocate Nik Hunder — who files public records requests for ridership numbers on CTA employee and board members’ company Ventra cards — fired at Barclay, saying he’d swiped onto the system only 49 times last year.
Barclay, who maintains he uses the system about once a week, has said that he sometimes uses his own personal Ventra card. He also said he’s sometimes recognized and ushered through fare gates.
The CTA’s new board is composed of three mayoral appointees, two gubernatorial appointees and two members appointed by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.
The other Johnson appointees on the board are Oswaldo Alvarez, who also serves on the NITA board, and Michael Eaddy, a pastor whom the mayor first appointed in 2024.
Preckwinkle’s appointees are Columbia College vice president Ann Kalayil and Tom Kotarac, a Civic Committee senior vice president who also serves as the chair of NITA’s board of directors.
Kotarac, a former board member of the now-defunct Regional Transportation Authority, which NITA replaced, emerged as a key figure during the transit governance transition. His new job — which, like Barclay’s, requires State Senate confirmation — comes with significant influence over the CTA, Metra and suburban bus agency Pace.
The governor’s picks are Neema Jha, who has served on the CTA board since 2022 and nonprofit executive Nedra Sims Fears, who leads the Greater Chatham Initiative. On Tuesday, board members picked Jha to serve as the board’s vice chair.
Fears nominated Jha to serve as vice chair of the board, pointing to her “wonderful tech background” as an asset. Jha is a director at the consulting firm Charles River Associates, where she advises organizations on technology infrastructure.
Fears appeared to reference Barclay’s past criticism of transit reform as she nominated Jha for the vice chair job.
The gubernatorial appointee said she had the “utmost respect” for all members of the board, adding that it was “critical that our vice chair and chair be leaders who are ready to meet this moment, both of whom are willing to embrace reform, rather than preserve the status quo.”
Fears also said that “the former chair publicly opposed elements of NITA Act, and so I’m really pleased that we now have a new opportunity to have a chair, and to have a vice chair that brings a different perspective.”
During Thursday’s meeting, acting CTA president Nora Leerhsen and other members of the CTA staff presented the new board with an overview of various agency metrics, including ridership numbers, hiring, crime and cleanliness.
“I am happy to provide a report today that will show that CTA is in the strongest state it has been in many years” Leerhsen said.
CTA ridership is the highest it’s been in six years, Leerhsen said. She also touted an ongoing reduction in crime on the transit system. FBI-classified serious crimes on the portion of the CTA within city limits are down 28% year-over-year, according to Chicago police data.
Leerhsen also provided some insight into what challenges the CTA is still facing when it comes to delivering scheduled bus and rail service. CTA data shows the agency delivered almost 99% of scheduled bus service in August, but just under 90% of scheduled rail service.
Staffing is no longer the main problem, Leerhsen said. While the agency experienced a dip in its number of rail operators earlier this year, it has reversed the trend. The agency had 873 rail operators in August, just 7 short of the 880 it had before the pandemic.
“Now, we’re looking at our aging fleet of vehicles,” she said. “We’re looking at mechanical defects and where they’re hitting us.”
As an example of how the CTA had tried to address the issue, Leerhsen said that that when aging vehicles on the Brown Line were breaking down, the CTA moved some oldest rail cars elsewhere so the Brown Line wasn’t being “uniquely affected” by issues they caused. The agency also deployed more experienced mechanics closer to the Brown Line “because that response time to mechanical issues is key to getting things moving quickly,” she said.