A shocking discovery that started out as a feel-good story about making the city look good quickly turned into a nightmare on State Street …
Driving North on State at about 1230 a.m. on June 21, 2024, I noticed some cool-looking stickers on the Red Line Subway exits at Monroe and Madison. I stopped to take some pictures to show off what our city was doing to prepare for summer visitors to downtown Chicago.
at first glance, the exits look colorful and inviting …
… but as I got closer, something seemed strange … the doors were welded shut …
Yet someone decided to put stickers on it to make it look like it’s being used.
I was wondering… it is even legal to weld exit doors shut on subway exits for a public transportation system…
In a city with a history of deaths related to exits during emergencies, such as the Our Lady of Angels School Fire in 1958, where 92 students and three nuns died, one of the main reasons for the high number of deaths was there were not enough escape routes, the E2 nightclub disaster in 2003 when 21 were trampled to death because the exits doors were not up to code and locked, or October 17, 2003, in the Cook County Administration Building Fire that resulted in six fatalities where exit doors were again one of the factors found to have caused the casualties.
So now, someone in 2024 made the decision to weld shut the exits of a subway system during a time when terrorist attacks and methods have become bolder, especially on public transportation systems … just imagine having three fewer exits to get out from during an emergency or the bad guy waiting for people to run out of that one open exit …
Scary to think anyone would make such a life-and-death decision … for whatever reason … there would never be a justification since the subway was specifically designed and built with those exits to protect the public.
Now those subway exit doors are welded shut, just like the Titanic gates that kept the third-class passengers down in their death traps.
So, after claiming down, I thought I was done, and I posted the picture of the welded-shut exit door with concerns on the SubX.News Twitter page and would call it night …
Welded Shut … Fake Ass Shit … CTA Subway exit doors are welded shut yet they put stickers on there to look like it's being used … Is this even legal to be welding door shut … some E2 stuff here … HiHo
— SubX.News (@SubxNews) June 21, 2024
CTA redline exit west side of the street right south of Madison… pic.twitter.com/YDYFLYQvrl
Then I saw two more exits with the same stickers and figured I should take a few more pictures to add to the Twitter post about the locking of subway exit doors while making them look like they are being used.
By the way, there was no signage indicating that these exits were out of service to the public.
Then as I got closer, I saw an opening in one of the doors, so I walked up and took a look at what was inside … and what I found was a pile of months-old trash.
and this is what i found …
When I saw that, I could not believe my eyes. I had to look twice, come back, check, and take another video to make sure I was not imagining something.
… welded exit doors, torn holes in metal, and months of garbage on our public transportation property smack dab in the middle of our downtown … with fake stickers to make it look good …
Yes, it was true …
We should not forget the excuse CTA President Dorval Carter Jr. made on Thursday, May 30, 2024, about City Council members demanding his ouster. He called it part of Chicago’s sordid “history of attacking and trying to bring down” African American leaders, even going as far as saying he has made significant improvements to Chicago’s transit system.
“The service is getting better,” he said. “I know that some people may find this humorous. Some people may think that this is a joke. But the reality is that I have thousands of people who have been working hard every single day to make this service better.”
Welding doors shut and putting up fake stickers on exits that have months of trash piled up on State and Madison should be the last straw for this $376,000 salaried bum.
Carter should be fired by the end of business on June 21, 2024.
And possibly investigated for Knowingly and Willingly endangering the citizens of Chicago
Mayor, it’s your choice.
Let’s see if you Got the Balls to make A Better, Stronger, Safer Chicago … HiHo
References
2003 E2 nightclub stampede
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_E2_nightclub_stampede
CTA chairman Dorval Carter Jr. tells Chicago alders he thinks push to fire him is personal By Tara Molina
Updated on: May 30, 2024 / 5:27 PM CDT / CBS Chicago
https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/cta-chairman-dorval-carter-jr-chicago-alders-firing-personal/
List of terrorist incidents involving railway systems
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_involving_railway_systems
Our Lady of the Angels School fire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_the_Angels_School_fire#Legacy
Significant Illinois Fires: Cook County Administration Building Fire
https://guides.library.illinois.edu/c.php?g=416856&p=2842528
Titanic Anniversary: Remembering the third-class passengers
https://abc13.com/titanic-anniversary-immigration-world-history/1874040/#:~:text=Grilled%20gates%20had%20been%20installed,water%20after%20hitting%20an%20iceberg
