I’ll never forget the first time I walked into a hot-boxed CTA el car. On a weeknight two summers ago, I was heading home from the Grand Red Line station. As the train doors opened, I stepped into a haze of smoke and breathed in the telltale, love-it-or-hate-it aroma of marijuana. A group of teenagers passing a joint were nearly rolling in the aisle with laughter. Not being a weed aficionado myself, I rolled my eyes and headed to the next carriage.
In response to a Facebook query I posted, Danielle McKinnie, a technical trainer at a hospital, also told me CTA smoking is on the rise. After a recent PM commute on the Red Line, during which people were walking through the train smoking, her husband picked her up at 95th Street. “He asked where I had been because I smelled like smoke,” she said. “He thought I’d been to a club.”
As an alternative to a direct confrontation with a smoker, a CTA spokesperson recommended switching cars at a stop and using the intercom to notify the train operator. Of course, that could delay the train and piss off fellow customers. The rep also noted that “No Smoking” signs are ubiquitous on CTA property, and the agency recently launched a PR campaign to remind customers that puffing on public transportation is verboten.
Asked about a possible link between homelessness and an increase in train smoking, Richardson pointed to studies that suggest nicotine is more addictive for people with schizophrenia. People with mental illness have also been found to smoke at two to four times the rate of the general population. “Like any other drug, nicotine is a coping mechanism,” she said.
