We don’t call the Desplaines stop of the CTA Blue Line the end of the line for nothing. Some days it can feel like a forgotten and overlooked place. There is petty crime. There are troubled people facing their demons. There are the rest of us trying to make our way to work, or our way home.
It’s good then to find people paying attention, bringing practical ideas, offering compassion, as happened last week when a range of Forest Park officials from the mayor, to the top cop, to the public works director met there with seldom seen CTA officials. We were glad to see a CTA project manager with a job description that includes working with the homeless, the hopeless in ways beyond rousting them out.
These are complicated issues. Our only path forward is through collaboration and shared accountability.
