Metro Safety

addxb2 · PostFeb 29, 2020#6012020-02-29T05:51+00:00

Two final notes:

Visit Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Chicago, or Denver’s local newspaper and read about “crime” on their rail systems and what their system operators are doing. STL isn’t unique by problem, solution, media, or public perception.

Secondly, Chicago (steel turnstiles, security guards, good land use, and high ridership) has recently been burdened by higher crime on the L. The mayor took action by shifting an additional 50 officers, totaling 250 for the entire system. Compared to STLs now 60 for a much smaller system.

quincunx · PostJul 19, 2020#6022020-07-19T14:24+00:00

Minn Star Tribune- Metro Transit ambassadors, other safety measures languish at Capitol

https://m.startribune.com/metro-transit ... 571821231/

framer · PostJul 19, 2020#6032020-07-19T21:15+00:00

"Man shot to death at North Hanley transit center in fight between two groups"

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/cri ... 67dd1.html

PostSep 23, 2020#6042020-09-23T00:57+00:00

I don't know about the rest of you, but sometimes I need reassurance that STL isn't alone in this sh*t.

"Arrest made in bone-breaking attack on senior citizen riding the (Miami) Metromover"

"Sunday’s attack on Eduardo Miguel Fernández, who was riding the Metromover before dawn, was the fourth recent reported battery on the driverless train, which circles the Brickell area, the downtown Miami core and the arts district."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/arrest-made- ... 53040.html

dbInSouthCity · PostApr 29, 2021#6052021-04-29T00:01+00:00

quincunx · PostApr 29, 2021#6062021-04-29T00:32+00:00

PostMay 15, 2021#6072021-05-15T13:58+00:00

Stltoday - MetroLink says new security approach is beginning to work, but hurdles remain

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/met ... 7cf2d.html

PostMay 18, 2021#6082021-05-18T20:03+00:00

Stltoday - Messenger: The simplest of MetroLink public safety solutions continues to escape St. Louis

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/col ... cd387.html

robertn42 · PostJun 15, 2021#6092021-06-15T15:30+00:00

I rode MetroLink for the 1st time in a long time this morning. Had a great experience. I took the red line from the Airport, transferred to the blue line at Forest Park, and got off at the end of the line, Shrewsbury-Lansdowne. The ride took no longer than 40 min. It was extremely clean. I had my ticket checked twice. Saw 5 safety officers + 2 County officers boarded my train in Clayton.

Everything was smooth and seamless. I'll definitely ride again and was very encouraged by the resources they are throwing at safety.

addxb2 · PostAug 04, 2021#6102021-08-04T17:52+00:00

My prediction regarding Missouri transit funding…STL gets $200m and a sizable chunk is spent installing turnstiles.

gone corporate · PostAug 04, 2021#6112021-08-04T19:52+00:00

^I'll gladly take turnstiles. And yes, I do take Metrolink on the regular and believe it would improve services.

TheWayoftheArch_V2.0 · PostAug 04, 2021#6122021-08-04T20:06+00:00

^^I'm 100% on board with that expenditure. I still ride Metro occasionally. Will take it to the Cards game tonight. But without Metro able to police themselves and the complete ambivalence of the county and city police I think this is a must one way or the other. If not grounded 100% in reality, the perception is Metro is non ridable for the casual public.

MarkHaversham · PostAug 04, 2021#6132021-08-04T20:32+00:00

TheWayoftheArch_V2.0 wrote: ↑
Aug 04, 2021
^^I'm 100% on board with that expenditure. I still ride Metro occasionally. Will take it to the Cards game tonight. But without Metro able to police themselves and the complete ambivalence of the county and city police I think this is a must one way or the other. If not grounded 100% in reality, the perception is Metro is non ridable for the casual public.

Turnstiles will fix the public perception of Metro until the first time a suburbanite sees someone jump a turnstile, and then perception will revert to the status quo ante.

sc4mayor · PostAug 04, 2021#6142021-08-04T20:33+00:00

Still hard and fast against turnstiles. Makes no logical sense to me to spend tens of millions of dollars to retrofit a system based on a (mostly incorrect) perception. It's not the way the system is designed but the way it's policed. And it's not Metro's fault. Metro long ago asked for permission to have its own transit police department. St. Louis County said no because they wanted to keep control...keeping us with this hodgepodge of 6 different agencies that don't like talking to each other.

Neidorff is correct about combining the city and county police departments. Then, within that combined department you create a large, single transit division. Single command, all on the same radio frequencies, etc. A cop at every station and on each train. Problem solved, for a fraction of the cost. 2 agencies (the other being St. Clair County on the Illinois side) instead of 6.

If someone is brazen enough to shoot a security guard on a platform who says they won't jump a turnstile? Especially if the policing doesn't change from its current state. If there's no cop around to see you jump a turnstile then it's basically just a hurdle bar. A cop checking tickets on each train would do more to prevent freeloading than a turnstile. And a turnstile wouldn't have stopped the killing of that St. Louis County health department employee at the Grand Station because he was on the upper bus level.

More efficient and effective policing is needed...not a multimillion dollar retrofit that won't cut to the heart of the system's problems.

addxb2 · PostAug 04, 2021#6152021-08-04T20:41+00:00

Chicago is a completely closed system, as is NYC, DC, etc. All experience serious crime regularly.

$2.50 won’t stop wrongdoers and there isn’t a shred of evidence suggesting serious events in the past would’ve been prevented with a rotating bar.

STL just has very sheltered white people who need excuses for not making better (greener and equitable) transportation and land use choices.

If you want the system to be safer, you put more people on it. If you want more people on it, you invest in TOD and increased high-frequency bus service.

TheWayoftheArch_V2.0 · PostAug 04, 2021#6162021-08-04T22:24+00:00

addxb2 wrote: ↑
Aug 04, 2021
Chicago is a completely closed system, as is NYC, DC, etc. All experience serious crime regularly.

$2.50 won’t stop wrongdoers and there isn’t a shred of evidence suggesting serious events in the past would’ve been prevented with a rotating bar.

STL just has very sheltered white people who need excuses for not making better (greener and equitable) transportation and land use choices.

If you want the system to be safer, you put more people on it. If you want more people on it, you invest in TOD and increased high-frequency bus service.

Of course they do, they are large cities with massive systems.

I'm not saying this is the ultimate solution. It is the best, in my opinion, for the near to intermediate future of the system with North - South Expansion somewhere in the distance. And a turnstile is a turn of phrase. the barriers most use these days are taller and harder to get over than simply hopping the rotating bar like all those great 80s and 90s movies. But a barrier as such is both physical and psychological and will curtail the freeloading element. All? I'm not so naive.

Not going to touch the third point. We all have our opinions about fellow denizens.

The fourth is a paradox. We need more commuters on a commuter system. While your points about TOD is true, it is not the end all be all. Pre-pandemic ridership only paid 18% of the cost to run the trains. We need people to feel they can choose the Metro for Cards game, Blues game, to leave the car in Brentwood / Maplewood / Clayton for the family outing to the Wheel, Aquarium and MLS Game. And because we have those 6 dysfunctional policing entities they won't unless some other action is taken. This seems more likely to happen than a city county police merger in the next 5 years (which I support), so I'll take it.

SeattleNative · PostAug 04, 2021#6172021-08-04T23:44+00:00

TheWayoftheArch_V2.0 wrote:
addxb2 wrote: ↑
Aug 04, 2021
Chicago is a completely closed system, as is NYC, DC, etc. All experience serious crime regularly.

$2.50 won’t stop wrongdoers and there isn’t a shred of evidence suggesting serious events in the past would’ve been prevented with a rotating bar.

STL just has very sheltered white people who need excuses for not making better (greener and equitable) transportation and land use choices.

If you want the system to be safer, you put more people on it. If you want more people on it, you invest in TOD and increased high-frequency bus service.
Of course they do, they are large cities with massive systems.

I'm not saying this is the ultimate solution. It is the best, in my opinion, for the near to intermediate future of the system with North - South Expansion somewhere in the distance. And a turnstile is a turn of phrase. the barriers most use these days are taller and harder to get over than simply hopping the rotating bar like all those great 80s and 90s movies. But a barrier as such is both physical and psychological and will curtail the freeloading element. All? I'm not so naive.

Not going to touch the third point. We all have our opinions about fellow denizens.

The fourth is a paradox. We need more commuters on a commuter system. While your points about TOD is true, it is not the end all be all. Pre-pandemic ridership only paid 18% of the cost to run the trains. We need people to feel they can choose the Metro for Cards game, Blues game, to leave the car in Brentwood / Maplewood / Clayton for the family outing to the Wheel, Aquarium and MLS Game. And because we have those 6 dysfunctional policing entities they won't unless some other action is taken. This seems more likely to happen than a city county police merger in the next 5 years (which I support), so I'll take it.

Tying your ridership to event transportation seems like a losing strategy compared to tying it to car optional lifestyles.

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sc4mayor · PostAug 05, 2021#6182021-08-05T00:08+00:00

You get more commuters on the trains by expanding the system. There's nothing really paradoxical about it at all. Build expansions (LRT/BRT/ART or whatever) into the dense North and South neighborhoods and there will be thousands of more people on the trains and buses. More eyes means less likely hood crimes will be committed. More officers on trains would do the same. Spending millions on turnstiles will not do those things and will only push expansion even further away. I live in the suburbs and use it. It's not dangerous! Right before the pandemic hit and decimated its usage, ridership on both the trains and buses was increasing, no turnstiles necessary.

With all due respect, I'm just not interested in seeing the region's transit money spent on coddling the perceptions of exurban folks that spend more time rabble-rousing on social media then actually using the trains.

I can see the KMOV headlines about turnstile jumpers already. And what happens when someone with a gun ends up past the turnstiles and shoots someone? Or assaults someone? That's not exactly out of the realm of possibility in this town. Then, like Mark said, we're right back where we are now. Only with millions of fewer dollars to spend on expansions or service improvements that would actually make the system more efficient and easy to use for new and existing riders.

But Neidorff wants turnstiles...so you'll probably get them. And I'll probably stop riding. And St. Louis will be the one city that uses this federal transit money coming down the pipe these next couple years to make a pointless, and expensive, cosmetic improvement while other cities pursue serious expansions.

bprop · PostAug 05, 2021#6192021-08-05T00:39+00:00

MarkHaversham wrote: ↑
Aug 04, 2021
TheWayoftheArch_V2.0 wrote: ↑
Aug 04, 2021
^^I'm 100% on board with that expenditure. I still ride Metro occasionally. Will take it to the Cards game tonight. But without Metro able to police themselves and the complete ambivalence of the county and city police I think this is a must one way or the other. If not grounded 100% in reality, the perception is Metro is non ridable for the casual public.
Turnstiles will fix the public perception of Metro until the first time a suburbanite sees someone jump a turnstile, and then perception will revert to the status quo ante.

So about six minutes.

dredger · PostAug 05, 2021#6202021-08-05T00:51+00:00

Thanks to the moderator for moving discussion over to the relevant thread considering how many times my comments are veering away from the thread subject.

I agree on sentiment that turnstiles provide a relatively short term change in perception and that it just takes a few jumpers and few incidents again to get you back to the same perception. What I think the better course for the long run as it relates to Metro Safety

- Consolidating County and City (a county in itself) into one sheriff department. What people have expressed makes a tremendous amount of sense.
- Fund more presence of officers/deputies, cameras and private security.

The above won't solve all of course but it will do more to make people feel safe and attract more riders. I

really think that the region isn't really going to see much more fixed transit in the foreseeable future so my take is actually do away with fares on metrolink outright & simply fund a more visual presence. In other words, the discussion on turnstiles is going in the wrong direction for the county and city.

steveinphilly · PostAug 05, 2021#6212021-08-05T01:56+00:00

I was in St. Louis this past week and returned home to Philly today. My sister dropped me off at 14th Street Station and I took the red line to the Airport.

At the Central West End Station, just as the train was departing the station, some clown came running up to the train and started banging on the doors to let him on the train, which the trainmen stopped and let the guy on. He announced loudly to the entire car that someone was chasing him and he managed to elude him by getting on the train.

He left the train at DeBalivere, which is good because a fare checker got on there. This is the first time in 25+ years of riding Metro I've ever seen anybody fare checking. In my car alone, she found 3 people who couldn't produce a ticket or a pass and kicked them off at the Rock Road station. I'm positive they got on the very next train.

PostAug 05, 2021#6222021-08-05T01:57+00:00

Sorry about that, maybe it was the blue line. It was whatever line goes to Lambert.

Miss Shell · PostAug 05, 2021#6232021-08-05T06:08+00:00

You can't jump this.

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symphonicpoet · PostAug 05, 2021#6242021-08-05T07:26+00:00

^Youi also can't take a wheelchair through it. Or a walker. The zoo used to have those as exits in certain places. I don't think I've seen a new one installed much of anywhere in about fifty years. They're not ADA compliant in the least, so you need a passthrough of some kind next to them. Which means you need someone nearby to make sure someone else doesn't just jam it open. You might even call them guards. So . . . we're about back where we started. BiState needs their own department.

quincunx · PostAug 05, 2021#6252021-08-05T12:31+00:00

Some stations are going to be difficult to add them. It's going to be an expensive mess. And a whole other thing that needs maintenance.

Metro Safety

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