CTA Free Day Email Hoax

By Rachelle Bowden in News on Dec 14, 2004 10:09PM

High fives to Midwest Unrest who managed today to somehow send emails to Chicago media from the CTA promising a day of free transit tomorrow and an apology from the CTA president Frank Kruesi about possible future service cuts.

“I personally apologize to our lower income, disabled, elderly and south side riders,” the fake news release attributes to Kruesi. “I apologize for not communicating more at our previous CTA public hearings.”

The message closed with Kruesi's former office telephone number, urging riders to call him.

To be fair, Midwest Unrest hasn't taken credit for the prank, but the CTA is pointing fingers their way. The group is trying to organize a fare strike for tomorrow in which riders don't pay to get on the bus or train and CTA workers don't ask them to pay.

The CTA is aware of the activist group's attempts to organize the strike but said they don't expect it to really have an impact on service on Wednesday. They say they've notified their workers and the police to enforce the rules.. and that anyone who doesn't pay is committing theft.. so Chicagoist is assuming they're going to try to bust people who try to strike.

We're not sure the strike, even if they could somehow pull it off, is an effective way to deal with the proposed service cuts, but we kind of admire them for having big ones. The CTA has been in contact with the FBI to find out if the hoax email is a violation of federal law. We'll see what happens tomorrow.