Federal prosecutors are expanding Project Safe Neighborhoods in Chicago, announcing Wednesday that the city’s trains and downtown areas will now be covered by the anti-violence program for the first time. Project Safe Neighborhoods was launched in 2001 under President George W. Bush to crack down on shootings. At the time, the program paid for the hiring of scores of new federal prosecutors and hundreds of state and local prosecutors to concentrate on gun cases across the country. The idea was for federal and local prosecutors to work together to decide which court system could deliver a maximum prison sentence for gun offenders. Early on, they focused on parolees. Signs and TV spots promoted the program, with one billboard — on the Indiana tollway that leads to Chicago — warning: “Stop bringing guns to Chicago or go to jail.” The program has remained in place since 2001 — not always with the same level of publicity or vigor. But on Wednesday, the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago announced it would enlarge the program beyond seven high-crime neighborhoods on the West and South sides. The program will now also be in “parts of three police districts in downtown financial zones that represent the economic engines of the city, as well as on the CTA trains that bring residents and visitors to those areas from every neighborhood of Chicago and from the city’s two international airports,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros said in a statement. “Downtown Chicago is the capital of the region’s economy and the cultural and civic heart of the Midwest, where interstate commerce runs strong,” Boutros said. “Many billions of dollars of revenue, taxes, and investments are anchored in our city’s financial districts, and when violence and criminal activity cause our residents, businesses, and tourists not to feel safe to live, invest, and shop in Chicago, everyone suffers, whether at the federal, state, or local level.” Chicago police Supt. Larry Snelling and Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said they support the expansion, with Dart saying in a statement that more federal resources are needed to combat organized retail theft, carjacking and armed robberies, which pose a threat “to the heart of Chicago’s economy.” Project Safe Neighborhoods involves enforcement as well as crime prevention and community engagement, according to Boutros. Money from the program can be spent on overtime for cops who work downtown and on CTA trains; along with task forces that combat gun crime and advertising for the program, he said. The focus by federal prosecutors in Chicago on gun prosecutions has risen and waned over the years. A decade ago, Chicago ranked 82nd out of 90 districts nationwide in gun prosecutions, the Sun-Times reported then. And last year, the newspaper and WBEZ reported that federal prosecutors in Chicago ranked in the bottom eight of the country’s 94 federal court districts in the percentage of gun cases they approved. Yet the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives performed more ownership traces of “crime guns” in Chicago than anywhere except Houston from 2017 through 2021. The new push to prosecute gun offenses comes at a time when critics have pointed to crime on CTA trains as one of the biggest reasons for ridership remaining at a low level since the COVID-19 pandemic. It also comes at a time when crime is down, but still at a worrisome level. Killings fell last year across the city, but there were far fewer slayings in other years over the past decade. And since the pandemic, downtown violence has remained a concern for residents and commuters alike. On Wednesday, Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke explained her own strategy in reducing shootings in a report on her office’s transition from former State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s administration. Burke says she will continue to collaborate with other law enforcement agencies to prosecute violent gun offenses, but also sees a need to divert people charged with first-time, nonviolent gun offenses from the justice system, and do a better job communicating with victims.