Transit Crime

[Silophant]

It definitely doesn't help that MTPD sits in their vehicles waiting for things to happen instead of riding the trains.

I can only imagine the response to the first video of a transit cop trying to get an uncooperative ‘unhoused’ person to leave the train.

I think I’d tend to sit in my vehicle too, thank you very much. Either that or quit.

Must be nice to have a job where you can just not do the parts you don't like and never face any consequences.

[Tyler]

It definitely doesn't help that MTPD sits in their vehicles waiting for things to happen instead of riding the trains.

I can only imagine the response to the first video of a transit cop trying to get an uncooperative ‘unhoused’ person to leave the train.

I think I’d tend to sit in my vehicle too, thank you very much. Either that or quit.

I'm sorry but what now? The only options are doing jack shit or dragging homeless off trains?

[tedlanda2571]

It definitely doesn't help that MTPD sits in their vehicles waiting for things to happen instead of riding the trains.

I can only imagine the response to the first video of a transit cop trying to get an uncooperative ‘unhoused’ person to leave the train.

I think I’d tend to sit in my vehicle too, thank you very much. Either that or quit.

I'm sorry but what now? The only options are doing jack shit or dragging homeless off trains?

Certainly not. There are countless options available.

...unfortunately, though we now live in a nuance free world where every single one of those options is classified as either "you didn't do jack shit", or "you drag homeless people off trains". The key difference being that the consequences of being lumped into the second bucket are far more severe. So game theory says, if those are the two outcomes, make damn sure you end up in the first one.

[LRV Op Dude]

Man fatally stabbed on Metro Transit bus in Uptown, Minneapolis

https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-ne ... inneapolis

[Bakken2016]

https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/ ... 2022-05-02

Metro Transit will put more police on Twin Cities light rail trains to deter crime

This is much needed, and should have came earlier.

[DanPatchToget]

Airport employees don't feel safe traveling between terminals on the Blue Line: https://www.startribune.com/msp-airport ... 74jlXIjkF0

[Korh]

I wonder if anyone can pinpoint the turning point when the public perception of transit crime became so abysmal.
I kinda put it at the shutdowns since the amount of people on the bus/trains pre COVID discouraged some people from doing what ever they wanted, but I'm starting to think if we get back to 2019 levels it still won't fix the problem.

[MNdible]

I feel like the situation was deteriorating for a couple of years before COVID, and there was lots of insistence that people were just being too sensitive and what did people expect living in a city? I don't fully buy into the broken window theory, but when you realize that you can smoke a cigarette on an LRT vehicle, you realize you can probably get away with whatever you want.

[DanPatchToget]

Based on my experiences it started going downhill in 2017 or 2018. Obviously before that there were still crimes and shady behavior on the trains, but it was rare and nothing like what can be seen now.

One time in 2019 or 2020 (pre-COVID) I took an early morning (around 5:30 AM) train to work and that experience truly showed how dire this issue is. Several homeless people in the elevator lobby at the 28th Avenue Station parking ramp and laying on the seats on the train, one guy smoking a cigarette on the train, and trash all over the place.

Our transit system, like many others across the country, are at a low point like what New York City's subway had to deal with in the 80s. Eventually we'll get out of it, but when and how is unknown.

[Didier]

Not to downplay real concerns, but I found that article to be lacking data on the actual crimes being committed against these employees.

"By the time I finish the text [for help], I could be bleeding to death," Hansen said. "There just aren't enough police on the trains."

Reading quotes like this make it sound like Mad Max, but has anybody actually been assaulted in the way he describes, or anything close to it? Or do they just feel unsafe?

TBH it seems like the obvious short-term solution would be to just hire a security guard to go back and forth between the terminals at night. Presumably there are multiple airport employees on each trip too, right?

[tedlanda2571]

Not to downplay real concerns, but I found that article to be lacking data on the actual crimes being committed against these employees.

"By the time I finish the text [for help], I could be bleeding to death," Hansen said. "There just aren't enough police on the trains."

Reading quotes like this make it sound like Mad Max, but has anybody actually been assaulted in the way he describes, or anything close to it? Or do they just feel unsafe?

TBH it seems like the obvious short-term solution would be to just hire a security guard to go back and forth between the terminals at night. Presumably there are multiple airport employees on each trip too, right?

I’m sure the perceived danger is far greater than the actual danger.

I’m equally sure that the argument that “sure riding the light rail is an absolutely miserable miasma of asocial behavior, but at least you aren’t getting assaulted,” is a sure fire way to kill a public transit system.

[thespeedmccool]

A truth I think everyone can understand: There is no reasonable, institutional solution to these problems, whether they're real or imagined.

Cops on every platform and every train car? Wildly expensive for a transit system already strapped for cash, and probably not even a perfect solution. The kind of people who do things like urinate on a train platform don't care who's watching them.

Turnstiles? Another expensive non-solution for an above-ground LRT system. Metro systems with turnstiles and without them have harassment, drug-use, and homeless encampments (though turnstiles do seem to push the homeless encampments just outside the station.)

Not to mention that these non-solutions come with the added benefit of aggravating the 50% of Minneapolitans and St. Paulites who identify with leftist movements.

No, I'd say there's no institutional way to solve this problem (save a complete overhaul of American government.) This can't be solved by throwing money at the same-old police like seems to be the implicit suggestion of most Strib "train-bad" articles.

This problem will get better when the community retaliates. After years of compassion, people who ride every day will eventually look the troublemakers dead in the eye and say "Get out of our car, get off our platforms." I truly believe the only way this will change is for riders to make harassers, smokers, and the like feel unwelcome.

Strib pieces like this are transit hit pieces that always beat around the fact that they're appealing to higher powers who have no power to change anything. They're written to get suburbanites riled up and generating clicks, while the writers lazily field the most basal "we're groeing our police presence" statements from agencies.

Nothing to see here. This article and many like it are written with no intention of doing real analysis.

[DanPatchToget]

A truth I think everyone can understand: There is no reasonable, institutional solution to these problems, whether they're real or imagined.

Cops on every platform and every train car? Wildly expensive for a transit system already strapped for cash, and probably not even a perfect solution. The kind of people who do things like urinate on a train platform don't care who's watching them.

Turnstiles? Another expensive non-solution for an above-ground LRT system. Metro systems with turnstiles and without them have harassment, drug-use, and homeless encampments (though turnstiles do seem to push the homeless encampments just outside the station.)

Not to mention that these non-solutions come with the added benefit of aggravating the 50% of Minneapolitans and St. Paulites who identify with leftist movements.

No, I'd say there's no institutional way to solve this problem (save a complete overhaul of American government.) This can't be solved by throwing money at the same-old police like seems to be the implicit suggestion of most Strib "train-bad" articles.

This problem will get better when the community retaliates. After years of compassion, people who ride every day will eventually look the troublemakers dead in the eye and say "Get out of our car, get off our platforms." I truly believe the only way this will change is for riders to make harassers, smokers, and the like feel unwelcome.

Strib pieces like this are transit hit pieces that always beat around the fact that they're appealing to higher powers who have no power to change anything. They're written to get suburbanites riled up and generating clicks, while the writers lazily field the most basal "we're groeing our police presence" statements from agencies.

Nothing to see here. This article and many like it are written with no intention of doing real analysis.

I'm not sure retaliation is a good approach to this issue. Minnesotans are known for their passive aggressiveness, so it'll be difficult for people to take a direct aggressive approach. More importantly is not knowing how troublemakers will react when they're called out on their misbehavior. There are people out there who will have an extreme overreaction to even the most respectable request to turn down their music, not smoke, lower their voice, wear a mask, etc. I think this approach could possibly even make matters worse with increasing assaults by troublemakers overreacting and/or people deciding to be vigilantes.

I do agree that more cops and community service officers won't solve this, and turnstiles are a no-go for the reason you stated. This is a societal issue that goes beyond transit, and transit operators can only do so much. Even if we managed to kick out all the troublemakers on buses and trains, or we just shut down the entire transit system, that will only relocate the issue. Without going into too much detail since this goes beyond the scope of this thread, to put it simply our government needs to take better care of its citizens instead of expecting people to pick themselves up by the bootstraps.

[tedlanda2571]

This problem will get better when the community retaliates. After years of compassion, people who ride every day will eventually look the troublemakers dead in the eye and say "Get out of our car, get off our platforms." I truly believe the only way this will change is for riders to make harassers, smokers, and the like feel unwelcome.

Nothing to see here. This article and many like it are written with no intention of doing real analysis.

Then I’m afraid we are doomed to a transit system of last resort, because for anyone with means, there is a simple, less confrontational alternative: don’t ride public transit.

I and many others have already made exactly that choice (I used to ride the bus to my downtown job).

When we have a transit system of last resort there will be very little political will to improve or expand it.

The same ‘users must bear the costs of fixing it’ mentality has more or less applied to Minneapolis Public Schools and students and employees are fleeing and the district itself is well on the way to a school of last resort.

I discourage that approach.

[thespeedmccool]

The same ‘users must bear the costs of fixing it’ mentality has more or less applied to Minneapolis Public Schools and students and employees are fleeing and the district itself is well on the way to a school of last resort.

I discourage that approach.

I don't think it's a good approach, but I think it's the only approach. Sometimes, a community will just have to do what the city can't.

I recall a story about a run-down neighborhood in Boston where long-time residents were begging the city to send someone to clean up the garbage on the streets while the city swore up and down it was doing what it could. At some point, community members had that classic "be the change you wish to see" epiphany and stopped waiting for the government to respond to a problem it couldn't solve. They organized a neighborhood group to collect trash and sweep the sidewalk and immediately things turned around.

Maybe that's the more positive and workable idea here: a community-run transit improvement group. Maybe local neighborhood groups could raise enough money to get some folding chairs and green vests for volunteers to sit on platforms and look official, clean up trash, and identify repeat troublemakers. Make it someone's responsibility to watch the LRT.

[Bob Stinson's Ghost]

The volunteer/vigilante approach certainly has a place, but the root cause of the problem is mental illness, and I don't see how you solve it without hiring an army of social workers, and nobody wants to pay for that.

[NickP]

I thought metro transit explicitly allowed housing insecure folks to use trains/buses for resting areas as long as they weren’t actively disturbing folks, like panhandling etc. If so, I actually like this policy. I don’t think it’s a be all solution, however I find it to be a very empathetic way to support citizens.

[Bob Stinson's Ghost]

I thought metro transit explicitly allowed housing insecure folks to use trains/buses for resting areas as long as they weren’t actively disturbing folks, like panhandling etc. If so, I actually like this policy. I don’t think it’s a be all solution, however I find it to be a very empathetic way to support citizens.

Unfortunately they often engage in behavior which other riders find frightening. I don't think I'll ever get blase about somebody pacing the car talking loudly to no one in particular, which seems to be a common behavior when high on meth. I've never had somebody get direct and confrontational, but I don't ride that often. My friends think I'm nuts for taking transit to the airport.

The train has to be the most expensive place to put these folks because of the way it depresses ridership. This is a massive community asset operating at a fraction of it's capability because we as a society are unwilling to provide meaningful help for the underclass.

[VacantLuxuries]

I don't see how you solve it without hiring an army of social workers, and nobody wants to pay for that.

Weird, I remember a whole lot of people very enthusiastically proposed paying for exactly this but we were told that Arredondo didn't like it and the mayor needed more power.

[Scott Wood]

A truth I think everyone can understand: There is no reasonable, institutional solution to these problems, whether they're real or imagined.

Cops on every platform and every train car? Wildly expensive for a transit system already strapped for cash, and probably not even a perfect solution. The kind of people who do things like urinate on a train platform don't care who's watching them.

Clearly the only rational solution is to kill all the humpback whales, prompting a visit from Spock and Kirk, at which point we hire them to ride transit all day long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1GyHQiuneU