Cases like this definitely don't help Metrolink expansion efforts, but we have to realize that we do have a serious crime problem that spills out into all sectors of our community. Makes me wonder if the $100 million investment of turnstiles is worth it. I've seen some crazy stuff on trains in other cities, but you got to think that the "honor" system attracts some undesirables. One thing I noticed in DC is that every station had security guards. Metro needs to do something fast.
I posted the following at stltoday, and figured it was relevant here as well.
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Here's what's frustrating to me. Metro spends over $13 million a year on security. About 25% of that is contractual obligations to police agencies (St Louis, St. Louis County, and St. Clair County). The rest is for security guards through a contract agency.
Elliott Davis reported that Metro doesn't try to track police presence on its trains or buses. In other words, they pay for protection yet don't follow up on it.
Security guards are effectively useless. They do nothing. They don't interfere with assaults, gambling, smoking, or anything else. They can't take freeloaders off the train. Watch for it sometime..all they can do is "request" that the freeloaders gets off; the scofflaw can just ride the train to his/her destination, get off, and walk away. At the low wages security guards receive, I wouldn't put myself in harm's way either. It's easier to slink off and hide in the shadows.
If you ride the system REGULARLY (not once a year to a Cardinals game), you would agree with me that there's less than a 1% chance that a police officer will be on any given train or platform, and close to 0% that an officer will be on a bus or at a bus transfer center.
Putting that into numbers, let's say that $13 million in protection was spent entirely on police officers. Let's generously assume that the cost of a full officer for a year - salary, benefits, insurance, etc.) is $100,000 per officer.
Metro is paying for the equivalent of 130 full time, badged, armed, police officers. Breaking that up over three full shifts (even though the system doesn't run three full shifts per day), that's about 43 officers that should be DEDICATED to the transit system. Every second of every day. Can you imagine what 43 full-time, always riding/patrolling/monitoring, armed officers could do for the safety of Metro?
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Turnstiles are not the answer. Not yet. There is something more immediate that needs to happen. The head of Metro security, a man who has been at the post for over 35 years and does nothing appreciable to address customer concerns about the increasing danger on the Metro system, needs to resign or be fired. Period.
Metro needs to demand the police protection it's paying for, then divert at least half of the $10 million paid to security firms and spend it on police protection. Even at a very conservative estimate, that would mean having 30 full time police officers every moment of every day keeping order. This would not cost a penny more than what Metro's spending now.
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Here's what's frustrating to me. Metro spends over $13 million a year on security. About 25% of that is contractual obligations to police agencies (St Louis, St. Louis County, and St. Clair County). The rest is for security guards through a contract agency.
Elliott Davis reported that Metro doesn't try to track police presence on its trains or buses. In other words, they pay for protection yet don't follow up on it.
Security guards are effectively useless. They do nothing. They don't interfere with assaults, gambling, smoking, or anything else. They can't take freeloaders off the train. Watch for it sometime..all they can do is "request" that the freeloaders gets off; the scofflaw can just ride the train to his/her destination, get off, and walk away. At the low wages security guards receive, I wouldn't put myself in harm's way either. It's easier to slink off and hide in the shadows.
If you ride the system REGULARLY (not once a year to a Cardinals game), you would agree with me that there's less than a 1% chance that a police officer will be on any given train or platform, and close to 0% that an officer will be on a bus or at a bus transfer center.
Putting that into numbers, let's say that $13 million in protection was spent entirely on police officers. Let's generously assume that the cost of a full officer for a year - salary, benefits, insurance, etc.) is $100,000 per officer.
Metro is paying for the equivalent of 130 full time, badged, armed, police officers. Breaking that up over three full shifts (even though the system doesn't run three full shifts per day), that's about 43 officers that should be DEDICATED to the transit system. Every second of every day. Can you imagine what 43 full-time, always riding/patrolling/monitoring, armed officers could do for the safety of Metro?
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Turnstiles are not the answer. Not yet. There is something more immediate that needs to happen. The head of Metro security, a man who has been at the post for over 35 years and does nothing appreciable to address customer concerns about the increasing danger on the Metro system, needs to resign or be fired. Period.
Metro needs to demand the police protection it's paying for, then divert at least half of the $10 million paid to security firms and spend it on police protection. Even at a very conservative estimate, that would mean having 30 full time police officers every moment of every day keeping order. This would not cost a penny more than what Metro's spending now.
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^Not sure where $13M comes in. According to the 2015 Budget, they spent $10.3M in 2013, and they projected $10.7M in 2014. Of that, $3.3M were salaries and benefits and $7.2M were on contracted services. The rest was retirement payouts, supplies, utilities, etc. If you include the $2.7M they spent on capital upgrades to health and security systems, then sure you get to $13M. But that's disingenuous because they can't spend capital funds received from DHS grants on operating expenses, and those security camera and fire safety systems are just as important as having officers.
And they already have 38 security personnel. They increased that by 4 in this year alone.
See p. 77 for 2014/2013 data:
http://www.metrostlouis.org/Libraries/A ... Budget.pdf
And they already have 38 security personnel. They increased that by 4 in this year alone.
See p. 77 for 2014/2013 data:
http://www.metrostlouis.org/Libraries/A ... Budget.pdf
http://fox2now.com/2015/11/23/serious-c ... ice-force/stlhistory wrote: ^Not sure where $13M comes in. According to the 2015 Budget, they spent $10.3M in 2013, and they projected $10.7M in 2014. Of that, $3.3M were salaries and benefits and $7.2M were on contracted services. The rest was retirement payouts, supplies, utilities, etc. If you include the $2.7M they spent on capital upgrades to health and security systems, then sure you get to $13M. But that's disingenuous because they can't spend capital funds received from DHS grants on operating expenses, and those security camera and fire safety systems are just as important as having officers.
And they already have 38 security personnel. They increased that by 4 in this year alone.
See p. 77 for 2014/2013 data:
http://www.metrostlouis.org/Libraries/A ... Budget.pdf
That's 3.6 million.For example, it paid The St. Clair County Sheriff's Office $1.3 million dollars in the past year for 22 Deputies. That's about $59,000 per deputy.
It pays St. Louis County Police $1.7 Million for 22 officers about $77,000 per officer.
St. Louis city police get $600,000 for 8 Officers. That's about $75,000 per officer.
...
Metro says it doesn't even get documentation on the hours those officers work. In short it's paying the bill, but has no control over the police officers assigned to Metro by the various law enforcement agencies.
And
http://www.kmov.com/story/28632070/cell ... -metrolink
That's another 10 million which seems to be separate, as the 3.5 million above is not for "off duty" officers but rather on-duty law enforcement.News 4 spoke with Metro Spokeswoman Diane Williams who said "MetroLink is safe." Williams said MetroLink spends $10 million for off-duty officers and security guards,
I welcome corrections.
Edit: i was just able to open the link. I see where it shows ~11M, although I don't understand (a) if the distributions to the police departments is included in there, and (b) why it includes $3M in wages and benefits to security personnel. Who is getting this? I think in 15 years I may have seen an actual Metro-badged security officer twice, and none at all in at least five years.
Either way, I don't think I'd make a different point at $13M vs. $11M to security personnel.
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Metro employs 38 security personnel and pays about $3M for them. Metro also pays about $7M in service contracts. I don't disagree that they could do a better job of checking on how that $7M is spent, but I would point out that the Metro chief has pushed for a separate police force for Metro instead of paying those contracts. Jon Belmar of St Louis County has opposed the move. I see no logical reason for opposing it other than 1) turf issues and 2) the county and other police departments are probably getting more resources from Metro than they are devoting to it.
In other words, it's pretty clear Metro would prefer to have its own security police force and not pay those contracts (i.e. doing what you are suggesting), but from what I understand, it's not legally permitted to do so under its charter. This isn't as much the fault of Metro or the Metro security chief or even the Metro chief.
In other words, it's pretty clear Metro would prefer to have its own security police force and not pay those contracts (i.e. doing what you are suggesting), but from what I understand, it's not legally permitted to do so under its charter. This isn't as much the fault of Metro or the Metro security chief or even the Metro chief.
My point about that is, I don't care what metro's "preference" is.
I don't trust its competence with a law enforcement agency. It has mishandling taxpayer money for security, apparently, for a very long time. Giving it the additional responsibility for training and maintaining a whole new sub agency puts up many red flags. We don't need another secretive power structure within the metro organization. It's not like a new set of requirements was sprung onto the agency and they are having trouble complying; the requirement to contract with police services has been in place for decades.
As an side, that metro has 38 dedicated, metro-badged security employees is shocking news to anyone who rides the system regularly. Where are they? Providing security at headquarters? Because it's not on the transit system.
I don't trust its competence with a law enforcement agency. It has mishandling taxpayer money for security, apparently, for a very long time. Giving it the additional responsibility for training and maintaining a whole new sub agency puts up many red flags. We don't need another secretive power structure within the metro organization. It's not like a new set of requirements was sprung onto the agency and they are having trouble complying; the requirement to contract with police services has been in place for decades.
As an side, that metro has 38 dedicated, metro-badged security employees is shocking news to anyone who rides the system regularly. Where are they? Providing security at headquarters? Because it's not on the transit system.
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There were reports of folks getting attacked on metro on all channels lately -- different people on each channel. If that keeps up, nobody will ride metro-link anymore for their own safety. They need to address the violence to bring back the public, or fare revenue will plummet. I like the idea of the plainclothes officers who don metro sleeve bands identifying themselves once the train starts moving.
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What are you talking about? Those brownshirts keep riders safe. If by safe you mean telling bicycle riders they can't board at the rear of the first car or front of the second car despite that not being the official policy which some are smart alec enough to print off and highlight to be able to share with them.
#Useless
#Useless
I've never been afraid of riding metro but I've never seen so many stories pile up recently. Clearly something needs to change. I'd even be for concealed carry permit holders to ride it too. Let's not pretend like criminals aren't carrying on trains and buses. They need even more cameras everywhere. Sad that so many people just sit and watch but then again these criminals are so brazen, they'd likely just shoot anyone that came to the mans aid. Perhaps there could be an alarm activation for metro on smart phones that could figure out which train the alert was on and by whom immediately. Also, we should have the harshest sentencing in the country for these idiots. This will start hurting ridership.
I've been suggesting something similar for years to Metro for its app. Registered users could open it up, report the crime, and it gets logged. Metro can then view them on a map and see when and where they happen (They claim they can't do this for emergencies, which still require a phone call, but they could still do it for minor crimes). This is simple stuff. But Metro would rather build its own POS version of google transit. Its app is completely useless.jcity wrote: Perhaps there could be an alarm activation for metro on smart phones that could figure out which train the alert was on and by whom immediately.
First thing Metro needs to do is have full police at the big stations. Hanley, Delmar, Debalivere, Civic Center, Grand etc. The security guards are useless.jcity wrote:I've never been afraid of riding metro but I've never seen so many stories pile up recently. Clearly something needs to change. I'd even be for concealed carry permit holders to ride it too. Let's not pretend like criminals aren't carrying on trains and buses. They need even more cameras everywhere. Sad that so many people just sit and watch but then again these criminals are so brazen, they'd likely just shoot anyone that came to the mans aid. Perhaps there could be an alarm activation for metro on smart phones that could figure out which train the alert was on and by whom immediately. Also, we should have the harshest sentencing in the country for these idiots. This will start hurting ridership.
That route from the airport to downtown is the first impression some visitors get, yet it's embarrassing. I ride Metro regularly, and yesterday afternoon's ride from the airport to downtown was the worst I've ever had.
I got panhandled less than a half-mile after leaving the airport. Plus the usual train entrepreneurs selling their wares. Numerous loud conversations that sounded like they were straight out of the Maury Povich show (baby daddies and DNA tests). It seemed like every single person on that packed train was just yelling and creating this raucous environment.
I'll admit to being a little extra paranoid due to Metrolink crimes (and broad daylight downtown muggings).
But after traveling a lot the past couple weeks, taking public transit of numerous kinds in numerous cities (including two trains earlier that day), this Metrolink trip was such an extreme departure from every other transit ride. A train where 85% of passengers are acting like they're at a party is very intimidating.
It reinforces this feeling of Metrolink being unsafe. It's kind of a vicious cycle, where the Metrolink is no longer a cross section of society because those who have a choice choose to drive.
It's not just crime, but it's the feeling of safety that Metro needs to get a grasp on.
I got panhandled less than a half-mile after leaving the airport. Plus the usual train entrepreneurs selling their wares. Numerous loud conversations that sounded like they were straight out of the Maury Povich show (baby daddies and DNA tests). It seemed like every single person on that packed train was just yelling and creating this raucous environment.
I'll admit to being a little extra paranoid due to Metrolink crimes (and broad daylight downtown muggings).
But after traveling a lot the past couple weeks, taking public transit of numerous kinds in numerous cities (including two trains earlier that day), this Metrolink trip was such an extreme departure from every other transit ride. A train where 85% of passengers are acting like they're at a party is very intimidating.
It reinforces this feeling of Metrolink being unsafe. It's kind of a vicious cycle, where the Metrolink is no longer a cross section of society because those who have a choice choose to drive.
It's not just crime, but it's the feeling of safety that Metro needs to get a grasp on.
Not to mention the people frequently listening to music through their phone without headphones.eee123 wrote:That route from the airport to downtown is the first impression some visitors get, yet it's embarrassing. I ride Metro regularly, and yesterday afternoon's ride from the airport to downtown was the worst I've ever had.
I got panhandled less than a half-mile after leaving the airport. Plus the usual train entrepreneurs selling their wares. Numerous loud conversations that sounded like they were straight out of the Maury Povich show (baby daddies and DNA tests). It seemed like every single person on that packed train was just yelling and creating this raucous environment.
I'll admit to being a little extra paranoid due to Metrolink crimes (and broad daylight downtown muggings).
But after traveling a lot the past couple weeks, taking public transit of numerous kinds in numerous cities (including two trains earlier that day), this Metrolink trip was such an extreme departure from every other transit ride. A train where 85% of passengers are acting like they're at a party is very intimidating.
It reinforces this feeling of Metrolink being unsafe. It's kind of a vicious cycle, where the Metrolink is no longer a cross section of society because those who have a choice choose to drive.
It's not just crime, but it's the feeling of safety that Metro needs to get a grasp on.
The Metro train experience has definitely declined.
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Have you contacted Metro?
Which stretch is the most trouble? Airport to Loop? What about Loop to Downtown?
Which stretch is the most trouble? Airport to Loop? What about Loop to Downtown?
Today, I got off the train at Grand. A POS got off the car behind me with music blaring. I don't know what he was using, but it was much louder than just a mobile phone. Maybe had a speaker attached to it. Two "security guards" - one male, one female - were literally 10 feet from me and they both looked up as he got off the car. To his credit, the male one says, "Shut it down." The guy continued to walk (I crossed the platform and was watching by this point). The guy didn't do anything. The guard says "Red, you hear me? Shut it down now!" (guy was wearing a red sweatshirt). The guy told him to F*** off and just casually walked away.dweebe wrote: Not to mention the people frequently listening to music through their phone without headphones.
The Metro train experience has definitely declined.
This is why I don't support "security guards" performing any function on the Metro system.
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^^Whenever I experience this, I have the thought of "You know if everyone were to act this way [playing music out loud on their phone speakers], the loud cacophony of all phones would drown out any single phone and that would take care of the problem" in a tragedy of the commons sort of way.
I hate situations where social etiquette breakers benefit more by bucking standards than others do by following them.
I hate situations where social etiquette breakers benefit more by bucking standards than others do by following them.
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At that point, what's the guard supposed to do? The guy has already left the train; unless we want to start arresting people for being jerks there's not much leverage there. That's why we need guards actually on the trains.bprop wrote:Today, I got off the train at Grand. A POS got off the car behind me with music blaring. I don't know what he was using, but it was much louder than just a mobile phone. Maybe had a speaker attached to it. Two "security guards" - one male, one female - were literally 10 feet from me and they both looked up as he got off the car. To his credit, the male one says, "Shut it down." The guy continued to walk (I crossed the platform and was watching by this point). The guy didn't do anything. The guard says "Red, you hear me? Shut it down now!" (guy was wearing a red sweatshirt). The guy told him to F*** off and just casually walked away.dweebe wrote: Not to mention the people frequently listening to music through their phone without headphones.
The Metro train experience has definitely declined.
This is why I don't support "security guards" performing any function on the Metro system.
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^ i would imagine the guard still has jurisdiction within the station, but do they have authority to detain and/or arrest?
They have as much ability as you or I do to make an arrest.urban_dilettante wrote:^ i would imagine the guard still has jurisdiction within the station, but do they have authority to detain and/or arrest?
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An individual would need to be extremely and repeatedly disruptive before I became okay with arresting for noise complaints.urban_dilettante wrote:^ i would imagine the guard still has jurisdiction within the station, but do they have authority to detain and/or arrest?
Maybe when Gateway Cards become a thing, guards can carry a card-swiper and fine people on the spot or something.
On my commute this morning, I talked to a regular that was actually in the car with Mr. Speakers. Another rider asked him to turn the music off; of course he didn't. He had it playing at least from Convention Center (where she got on) to Grand (where he got off).
I guess that's not "extremely and repeatedly" disruptive enough.
I guess that's not "extremely and repeatedly" disruptive enough.
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Well your friend isn't a guard, and if she were I would've wanted her to kick the guy off at the next stop.
And when they say, please get off the train, and the guy remains seated and gives them the finger (like he did with the guards)?
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Pick him up and throw him out like the barkeep in an old timey saloon.
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Not sure if this has been mentioned before, but the ONLY solution to me, is off-duty "REAL" armed police officers on EVERY train and EVERY station. (Even if that means this policy is only enacted after a certain time in the evening)
Once this policy is known, the thugs will stay away, for the most part. I know this will be expensive, but the future of the system is at stake. If riders do not feel safe, you will lose those people that have the means to buy a car or find alternatives. That has to make a good % of the ridership. Obviously, there are people that need to ride Metrolink, but based upon the full parking lots, a good amount of people could drive to work.
Once this policy is known, the thugs will stay away, for the most part. I know this will be expensive, but the future of the system is at stake. If riders do not feel safe, you will lose those people that have the means to buy a car or find alternatives. That has to make a good % of the ridership. Obviously, there are people that need to ride Metrolink, but based upon the full parking lots, a good amount of people could drive to work.