urbanSTL

Makes sense to me. In practice they'd probably allocate overhead cost such as vehicles too.

On the flip side, Metro's current security budget for 170 completely, utterly useless guards could take a big dent out of that. Additionally, fine revenue would, I assume, go to the jurisdiction in which it was made.

I agree about turnstiles. It's just not a magic bullet. Even if you buy Stenger's rationale that it's much cheaper than $100M to build out, just having a valid fare doesn't mean you eliminate crime. Just look at how many people are selling stolen transfers and digging through trash cans to get tickets. And it's not like criminals can't just walk up and buy a ticket and then do whatever they want on the train.

Turnstiles have to be added because voters won't shut up about them whenever Metro funding comes up. Whether they work or not is basically irrelevant.

^ I think things will hinge on whether a close look at costs come closer to the $100M or $10M figures being thrown around by various parties. Also, city voters just supported a tax increase to expand Metrolink.

^ Or the increased number of passengers COULD be a bigger target for those who wish to take advantage of them


BTW I got the Facebook ad again for the site to report crime: http://www.stlmetrocrime.com

chaifetz10 wrote: ↑

Apr 17, 2017

bprop wrote: ↑

Apr 17, 2017

^ Or the increased number of passengers COULD be a bigger target for those who wish to take advantage of them


BTW I got the Facebook ad again for the site to report crime: http://www.stlmetrocrime.com

By this logic, why even have Metro then? Just shut it down so no one would be a target. Obviously this isn't a good idea so instead we need to figure out how to get more people to ride to add extra eyes and ears to report crime and maybe, just maybe criminals would think twice if they had a train car filled with people and not just them and their potential victim.

I was half joking.

When you talk about criminals, you might be talking about the kind that try to murder/beat someone. I'm thinking the more day to day stuff like selling stolen goods (DVDs, bus transfers), panhandling, or dice/card games, which tend to work better with crowds.

Do we know if the serious crime is generally perpetrated in emptier cars? I talked to a lady who was sitting there last week and a thief tried to grab her iPhone as he ran off the train - it was on a packed car at rush hour.

Let's hope this doesn't catch on here: As many as 60 juveniles swarmed a BART train in Oakland and robbed and assaulted passengers.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-m ... story.html

How is this possible?! They have turnstiles!
Need TSA airport-level security.

The youngsters were spotted by witnesses hastily jumping over fare gates before boarding a Dublin-bound train just after 9:20 p.m. at the Coliseum Station on San Leandro Street, according the BART Police Department.

There were also shooting on the Atlanta subway and the Chicago EL in recent weeks. STL Metro isn't alone.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

At some point you have to ask what level of safety you require. If it's 100%, you better have millions to spend on a private security force to follow each citizen around and protect them individually. Or accept that people will on some level use sensational crimes to reinforce their preexisting fears about being around other people, and there's very little anyone can do about it.

quincunx wrote: ↑

Apr 25, 2017

How is this possible?! They have turnstiles!
Need TSA airport-level security.

The youngsters were spotted by witnesses hastily jumping over fare gates before boarding a Dublin-bound train just after 9:20 p.m. at the Coliseum Station on San Leandro Street, according the BART Police Department.

The Oakland paper has some + 200 comments and going on the incident the other day and before they changed up the article. Comments were getting harsh for good and bad reasons (including a fair share for blaming BART not coming down on fair skippers). The comments also hit had on that fact that BART has it owns fleet of police cars that you always see on the freeways going to and from station. A lot of comments asked why its own police force isn't riding BART? Good question for those who don't have the luxury of working banker hours with daylight and crowds that provide a much safer environment during the regular commute..

http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/25/ ... ire-train/

Bi State estimates $20 million for MetroLink security upgrades:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... 9956e.html

framer wrote: ↑

Apr 28, 2017

Bi State estimates $20 million for MetroLink security upgrades:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... 9956e.html

Incredibly misleading information in the article - some perhaps from the P-D, and some from Metro.

First, it's not at all for what a normal person would call "security upgrades" - things like cameras, turnstiles, technology.

Rather, it's almost entirely for more security staff - an ongoing, annual cost.

Then:

Bi-State Development Agency officials say that would be enough to put a law enforcement officer on every MetroLink car and at each station,

but then a few paragraphs later:

Nations said that phrase refers to police officers, Metro public safety officers and private security guards

That is utter bullsh*t. "Public safety officers" and security guards can't cite fare evaders, can't make arrests, and can't enforce the law. Period. Worthless times three is still worthless. In short, they're not "law enforcement officers" because they can't enforce the law.

Don't even get started on that cost. Metro pays St Louis County about $75,000, all-in, for a full time cop. And that's the most expensive of the three agencies it contracts with. Divide that into the $18M and you have 240 new FULL TIME police officers on the system? That's like 60 full time police at any given time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There aren't even that many platforms+cars in use at any given time on the system, even at rush hour. And the system doesn't even run 24 hours a day.

And this is in addition to the 45+ police officers already on the job?? And the 40+ metro thugs? And the security guards?

And my numbers assume they're hiring all cops - which they're not. Nations says it will be a mix of low-wage security guards, useless metro officers, and cops. There aren't enough places in the system for them to go. Where is this money actually going? Can anyone make the math work?

stlgasm wrote: ↑

May 01, 2017

The KSDK promos for the upcoming cover story, "The Mess With MetroLink" is disgraceful and terribly irresponsible. Nothing but sensational scare tactics that will only further stigmatize MetroLink, and by extension, the City in general. While security on the train system is an important story, KSDK could take a constructive spin and highlight the steps being taken to improve safety. But no. Instead, they decided to be just another voice to scare people away from riding and visiting the city. Pathetic. How many thousands of people ride the MetroLink every day without incident. But now, people who might've considered taking the train will opt to drive, and the fears that the train is "dangerous" will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is exactly what happened to Gaslight Square too. KSDK needs to be called out on this BS.

I'm holding out a very marginal hope that they'll explain why the current 215 security personnel are seemingly absent from the system. In other words, why Metro has been a financial and accountability mess rather than a "mess" as far as security. Which it kind of is, but I agree that it's sensationalist wording when presented in a vacuum.

Then again, it's sweeps....

Can't wait for "The Mess with the Meramec: How governments's failure to manage and forbid floodplain development puts people and property in danger, soaks taxpayers, and damages our economy."

quincunx wrote: ↑

May 02, 2017

Can't wait for "The Mess with the Meramec: How governments's failure to manage and forbid floodplain development puts people and property in danger, soaks taxpayers, and damages our economy."

I feel like I've read that story in local media a hundred times.

“Among the criminal element … the word has gone out that two things are true,” said Vincent Schoemehl, chairman of Bi-State Development board of commissioners. “No. 1, they can’t write you a ticket, and No. 2, they can’t arrest you for anything. Well, that word travels …

“I’m convinced we are driving more drug trade and what not onto the train because they know nobody can arrest them. We have sort of made the problem worse.”

Lots more here:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crim ... 11197968C6

From the article:

Bi-State said its officers were stripped of the ability to cite fare violators because of a problem with the ticket form MetroLink employees used. The issue was brought to the agency’s attention in an October 2015 letter from the police chiefs of St. Louis and St. Louis County.

The problem, the letter says, is a nine-digit identifier printed on the tickets. The number is used by the federal government to compile statistics and measure accountability of law enforcement agencies. MetroLink had been using the St. Louis County Police Department’s number.

Bi-State, the chiefs wrote, needed to apply for its own.

Bi-State says their officers have been writing tickets since 1993.

After receiving the letter from the police chiefs, Bi-State applied to the FBI for its own ORI number in December, but the application was rejected in February. Bi-State’s public safety department, the agency said, did not meet the criteria to be a criminal justice agency.

“The police departments we work with have told us they view fare enforcement as the responsibility of Metro,” said Patti Beck, Bi-State’s director of communications, in an email.

This is kind of amazing...

“Generally I think the tickets they are writing just aren’t valid tickets because they are not peace officers,” McCulloch said in an interview last week. “Only peace officers are capable of writing a summons or making an arrest for a misdemeanor violation, and the MetroLink employees, no matter what they call them, are not and cannot be peace officers.”

Despite his initial comments that MetroLink security personnel could not legally issue tickets for fare violations, McCulloch seemed to change his position later in the interview and in a subsequent voicemail message.

“That’s an argument that could go either way,” he said in the interview. “You can’t make an arrest. But the summons is not strictly speaking an arrest. It’s a summons to appear in court. It’s still not valid until the prosecutor signs off. Then it’s an actual charge.”

A week later, McCulloch left a voice message for a reporter about a state statute that allowed Bi-State to appoint personnel who could legally enforce rules and issue citations. That law also says the agency can only employ peace officers through contracts with local jurisdictions.

“They (Metro security) are authorized to issue a citation for fare jumping or whatever other regulation they might have,” McCulloch said in the message.

On Wednesday evening, after this story was first published on the stltoday.com website, McCulloch called again and said the real reason his office stopped prosecuting those cases was that MetroLink operated on an honor system. He said he would not charge someone for failing to honor the fare system.

Asked about charges his office had recently issued for citations to MetroLink fare violators by county police officers, McCulloch said there might be some confusion on his staff.

He said his office will not file any more charges for fare violations unless turnstiles are installed at MetroLink stations.

^ And that statement, assuming it's his final position on the matter, possibly invalidates all of the cases the county has procecuted for summons based on Bit-State written tickets since 1993:

“This is not something we have dealt with before,” said Thomas Harvey, executive director of ArchCity Defenders, a public interest law firm that represents low-income people, including the homeless. “If what McCulloch says is true, which is that these are invalid tickets, then all of the prosecutions are invalid. And it seems like St. Louis County has been really reckless in the prosecution of people ...

I love this town, but this is the St. Louis region in a nutshell.

-RBB

And here I've been dutifully paying for my monthly pass and carrying it for years. Even taking part in the never ending test of the new Gateway smart card and "tapping" the dang thing every time I get on the train. What a chump!

stlgasm wrote: ↑

May 01, 2017

The KSDK promos for the upcoming cover story, "The Mess With MetroLink" is disgraceful and terribly irresponsible. Nothing but sensational scare tactics that will only further stigmatize MetroLink, and by extension, the City in general. While security on the train system is an important story, KSDK could take a constructive spin and highlight the steps being taken to improve safety. But no. Instead, they decided to be just another voice to scare people away from riding and visiting the city. Pathetic. How many thousands of people ride the MetroLink every day without incident. But now, people who might've considered taking the train will opt to drive, and the fears that the train is "dangerous" will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is exactly what happened to Gaslight Square too. KSDK needs to be called out on this BS.

Here's the KSDK story: http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/the-mess ... /436621096

in light of the P-D's story I don't think 'mess' is completely inaccurate.

-RBB

McCulloch comes across as someone who doesn't seem to know what he or his office are doing.

Officials need to get over the infatuation with turnstiles.

Are there any light rail systems built in the last 30 years with turnstiles? That money would be far better spent on real police writing real tickets that are really enforced, and more than $25 in cost.

I rode the new Denver line from the airport and back the other day. They had an actual armed officer checking tickets, keeping the riff-raff in check.

Then I returned here and the trip home from the airport on Metrolink contained the usual loud, profane kids, screaming in front of a train full of Robotics Competition kids and their chaperones.

danke0 wrote: ↑

May 04, 2017

And here I've been dutifully paying for my monthly pass and carrying it for years. Even taking part in the never ending test of the new Gateway smart card and "tapping" the dang thing every time I get on the train. What a chump!

Speaking of gateway cards - are they ever coming out with those? Those were promised like 4 years ago?