More CTA "Patrol"?

Um, really?

• City officials on Thursday announced a new security surge for Chicago’s transit system, outlining a plan that they said will put dozens of additional police officers and private security guards on CTA buses, trains, and platforms beginning Friday. The move expands a long-running program that pays Chicago cops to work overtime shifts on public transit.

  CTA and CPD leaders said the surge will increase the number of sworn officers assigned through the Voluntary Special Employment Program to an average of 120 per day, up from the typical daily staffing level of 77.

But we were told OT was going to be slashed? 

And in the post directly below this one, there are about one-thousand retirements on tap with only three-hundred-fifty new hires scheduled.

And if they hire hundreds of "private security guards," what are they going to do? Take pictures of rapists, turnstile jumpers, chain snatchers and arsonists?

Manpower is about to become an even bigger issue than it was when we started talking about it ten years ago.