Riders and a public transit expert expressed skepticism about a Chicago police plan to stop some rush-hour riders before they pass through rail station turnstiles to screen their bags for explosives. 
 
 There is "no known terrorist threat" that prompted the new procedure slated to begin the week of Nov. 3, Nancy Lipman, Chicago police commander for public transportation, said Friday at a news conference announcing the initiative. 
 
 Chicago police spokesman Marty Maloney says the security measure is a "proactive, protective measure." 
 
 "We know that surface transportation has been targeted in other places in the past [Madrid, New York, London, Russia] and want to take whatever precautions possible," Maloney told RedEye. 
 
 Amtrak and the New York City and Washington transit stations employ a similar screening measure, Lipman said. While officials won't disclose the pricetag for the CTA security initiative, it is being fully funded with part of a $3.5 million federal anti-terrorism grant. 
 
 Some CTA riders Friday said they were concerned that passengers stopped for bag checks could opt out of the procedure. Joseph Schwieterman, a DePaul professor specializing in transportation issues, said it's difficult for mass transit systems to provide airport-level security. 
 
 "Unfortunately, it's needle in a haystack trying to identify vulnerabilities in mass transit systems," Schwieterman said. "We have hundreds and hundreds of access points to our stations." 
 
 Chicago police say they will randomly select one rail station each day to set up the screening table outside the rail turnstiles during rush hour. Lipman said most of the stations will be downtown but other stops will be included as well. 
 
 A team of four to five officers will man the table, which will have two explosives testing machines. 
 
 Police will approach riders, whom they have randomly selected by picking a random number that morning, Lipman said. 
 
 For example, if police pick the number 10, they will ask the 10th person who enters the station, then the 20th and so on, Lipman said. 
 
 Police say they will swab the outside of the bags but will not open them during the test. 
 
 Cloth rubbed on the bag is inserted into the testing machine. At that point, a positive or negative result registers on the machine's screen. 
 
 Riders who pass the test are free to enter the turnstiles. Officers will ask to inspect the bags of riders who fail the test. Police say the machines are testing the presence of explosives, not drugs. 
 
 The whole process should take "less than a minute," Lipman said during the Friday press conference at the Clinton stop on the Green and Pink lines. "We expect it to have no impact on a customer's commute time." 
 
 Riders who refuse to have their bag swabbed won't be allowed to get on the train—in fact they'll be ordered to leave the station. But they can head to another station to board the train, police said. 
 
 Or, if police suspect the rider is involved in "further suspicious activity, and if we determine that probable cause exists to stop him/her for questioning, we might do so," Maloney said. Riders who say no to the swabbing but try to enter that station's turnstiles face arrest, police say. 
 
 The screenings at stations will occur "several times a week," police said. 
 
 Michael Garcia, 30, said he typically carries a backpack when he rides CTA trains from Skokie to the Midway Airport Orange Line every day for work. Garcia said he would agree to testing if he is asked but questioned whether there could be a better process. 
 
 "If they swab one random person's bag, what about the next person who might have something?" Garcia asked. "I think it's just a waste of money and time." 
 
 CTA spokesman Brian Steele said the screenings will be performed during rush hour so riders won't have to worry about missing their train if they undergo the test because of continual train service. 
 
 More than 229 million CTA rail rides were taken in 2013. The CTA has more than 140 rail stations. 
 
 Tim Looney, who typically rides the Brown Line to the Clark/Lake Loop station for work, said he doesn't believe this program will be successful because riders can opt out of the screenings. 
 
 "It seems like the way they're announcing it, they're letting us know you can just leave the station and go to the next station if you had a bomb in your bag. To me, I just don't imagine too many people would get caught," said Looney, of Andersonville. ||||| CHICAGO (CBS) — New security measures have been announced to improve safety on CTA trains, under a federal counter-terrorism initiative. 
 
 CBS 2’s Susanna Song reports, starting Nov. 3, if you ride the “L,” prepare to be asked to hand your bags, purses, or suitcases to a Chicago police officer to be screened for explosives at some stations. 
 
 Passengers will be selected at random before passing through turnstiles at CTA train stations. 
 
 Police officers with a mobile explosive screening team will swab bags and place the sample in a machine to check for explosive compounds. Bags will not be opened. The test takes only about 30 seconds. 
 
 “We know the fears and the possibilities. It’s going to take 20 to 30 seconds of someone’s time. While we know our commuters’ time is precious, we think their safety is probably priceless,” Chicago Police Public Transportation Cmdr. Nancy Lipman said. ||||| Aaron Robison was commuting home from work last fall on the Brown Line when an older man carrying a plastic bag of Old Style beer took a seat across from him. 
 
 The man opened a beer and surveyed the car, scowling as he saw another rider talking on a cellphone a few feet away, Robison said. He watched as the man pulled a clunky black device topped with five antennas from his pocket and switched it on. 
 
 Almost instantly, commuters who had been talking on their phones went silent, checking their screens for the source of their dropped calls, Robison said. 
 
 On Tuesday, undercover officers arrested the man who had allegedly created his own personal quiet car in recent months with an illegal device he imported from China, according to Cook County prosecutors and Chicago police. 
 
 An attorney for Dennis Nicholl, 63, a certified public accountant, said his client wanted only some peace and quiet on his commute from his North Side home to the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System, where officials confirmed he works as a financial analyst. 
 
 "He's disturbed by people talking around him," attorney Charles Lauer said after a judge set bail at $10,000 while dubbing Nicholl "the cellphone police." "He might have been selfish in thinking about himself, but he didn't have any malicious intent." 
 
 Records provided by the Federal Communications Commission show that the regulator has issued citations mostly for people attempting to sell the illegal jamming devices on Craigslist. But in at least one case, a Florida resident was hit with a $48,000 fine for using a cellphone jamming device as he commuted daily around Tampa. The offender told officials he wanted to prevent motorists from using their cellphones while driving. 
 
 CTA riders had been complaining for months about dropped calls on the train before Dennis Nicholl was arrested for allegedly using a jamming device to interfere with cellphone calls on a Red Line train. March 9, 2016. (CBS Chicago) CTA riders had been complaining for months about dropped calls on the train before Dennis Nicholl was arrested for allegedly using a jamming device to interfere with cellphone calls on a Red Line train. March 9, 2016. (CBS Chicago) SEE MORE VIDEOS 
 
 A CTA spokeswoman said Nicholl's arrest appears to mark the first for using a cellphone jamming device on the transit system. 
 
 Photos of Nicholl holding the device on CTA trains had circulated online for months. Police had been tipped to the individual months ago and had obtained his photo. On Tuesday, a team of undercover officers conducting surveillance saw Nicholl enter the Loyola station on the Red Line. 
 
 He was arrested a short time later after he switched on the device as an undercover officer near him spoke on his cellphone on a southbound train, according to an arrest report. The officer's call was dropped, the report said. 
 
 Nicholl's family members declined to comment, but a co-worker expressed surprise that the financial planner he described as timid and not very social had been arrested. 
 
 "He's a harmless guy — he wouldn't want to hurt anyone," said Bobby Chacko, also a financial planner for the hospital. 
 
 Chicago Police Department Dennis Nicholl, 63, faces felony charges of interfering with cellphone calls using a signal jamming device after undercover officers said they caught him using the device March 8, 2016, on the CTA Red Line, police said. Dennis Nicholl, 63, faces felony charges of interfering with cellphone calls using a signal jamming device after undercover officers said they caught him using the device March 8, 2016, on the CTA Red Line, police said. (Chicago Police Department) (Chicago Police Department) 
 
 Nicholl had never been a tyrant about noise around the workplace, according to Chacko. 
 
 Robison and another rider who had witnessed Nicholl's antics on the train in the past reacted to his arrest with a mixture of amusement and relief. Both said they had worried that the jamming device would prevent 911 calls from going through or could interfere with CTA's communication systems. 
 
 "I think he liked the feeling of being in control of the car," said Robison, who is also an accountant. "It's kind of a digital 'stay off my lawn, you young people with your cellphones.'" 
 
 The other rider, Brian Raida, 30, said he was on his morning Red Line commute to his IT job in 2014 when he saw Nicholl on the train holding a device with multiple antennas on top. Suddenly, his phone lost service. 
 
 "Everyone was looking at their phones like — what the hell?" Raida said. 
 
 Raida snapped a photo of Nicholl with a bulky device on his lap, and it eventually made its way onto social media. He also provided police with the photo and made a complaint that same day, Raida said. 
 
 And he confronted Nicholl as he got off the train, telling him, "Hey dude, nice jammer," Raida said. 
 
 "He kind of looked at me and grinned," Raida said. 
 
 Chicago police teamed up with the FCC and the CTA to track down Nicholl. Armed with a photograph taken by a CTA passenger of the suspect holding in his hand what appeared to be a black electronic device with multiple antennas, an undercover "mission team" set up at the Loyola stop on the Red Line at 6 a.m. Tuesday. 
 
 A little more than an hour later, an undercover officer followed Nicholl onto the train. The plainclothes officer situated himself near Nicholl and immediately made a call on his personal cellphone, according to the arrest report. 
 
 The officer saw Nicholl remove a black electronic device with multiple antennas from his pocket and push a button on it, police said. The officer immediately lost his signal and the call dropped, police said. 
 
 After the train stopped at the Granville platform, Nicholl was taken into custody by officers. He was holding the jamming device in his hand, police said. 
 
 Nicholl admitted using the jamming device because "he gets annoyed at people talking on their cell phones while riding on the CTA," the arrest report said. 
 
 Nicholl, of the 1000 block of West Loyola Avenue, was charged with unlawful interference with a public utility, a felony. 
 
 This is not the first time Nicholl has been charged with jamming cell calls. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge in June 2009, according to court records. He was placed under court supervision for a year, and his equipment was confiscated and destroyed. 
 
 Robison had some simple advice for Nicholl to make his future commutes on the CTA more pleasant. 
 
 "He should just use headphones," he said. 
 
 sschmadeke@tribpub.com 
 
 Twitter @SteveSchmadeke
– Chicago police will screen the bags of passengers getting on the city's CTA trains in what the department calls a "proactive, protective measure," the Chicago Tribune reports. "We know that surface transportation has been targeted in other places in the past"—places like Madrid and New York—and police "want to take whatever precautions possible," says a spokesman. A few days a week, passengers at a single station will be randomly selected to have their bags swabbed, but not opened, in a check for explosives. If passengers refuse the test, they'll be required to leave the station, but they can get on the train elsewhere—unless police have "probable cause" to question them, the spokesman says. If a passenger fails the swab test, police will ask to look in his or her bag. The program, funded using a portion of a federal anti-terror grant, has some riders questioning its usefulness. "If they swab one random person's bag, what about the next person who might have something?" asks one passenger. "I think it's just a waste of money and time." As for time, a police officer says it will take "20 to 30 seconds" to do a check, CBS 2 reports. "While we know our commuters’ time is precious, we think their safety is probably priceless."