Transit Crime

[angrysuburbanite]

Well said, I did a bit more digging and apparently some community organizations have already been helping/helped many of those riders over the past year or so, which I did not know, and is good to hear.

[DanPatchToget]

Going off of this discussion from February, I think that the willingness of lawmakers to shift away from the typical American "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" attitude and get much better and reliable funding to social services, and on the other end willingness from those who have issues to admit they have issues and getting help to fix those issues, requires a massive cultural shift equivalent to moving a mountain.

As was mentioned already this goes far beyond transit, and it's a shame that some believe punishing transit for factors outside of its control is the answer. Meanwhile with road crimes no one ever thinks cancelling road projects and reducing funding for roads is the answer, which to be clear that's not what I believe. I'm just pointing out the double standard.

Like many issues in our country, I think there's not enough interest from lawmakers to move away from just complaining about issues and actually implementing real and long-lasting solutions. They can feel free to prove me wrong though.

[DanPatchToget]

As a light rail operator there's quite a few nuisances from the public that irritate me, and one of the worst is using the emergency door opener, especially when the train isn't at a platform. Yesterday in the early morning two people got on my train at Lake Street, and as we're leaving the station for some reason they decide they didn't want to be on there anymore so they popped the door open and ran off into the night. When this happens it's an at least 2-3 minute delay because the operator has to get out, reset the door, and make sure no one is in between the couplers or off the platform. This process was a little longer because the first car was off the platform and the second car, which those jerks were on, was still on the platform, so I had to climb up onto the platform while also squeezing in between a fence and the train.

This occurrence isn't that uncommon, and unfortunately it's very easy for people to do and get away with. I understand the need for an emergency door opener for actual emergencies, but I think something needs to be done whether it's with our existing trains or a future Type 4 LRV. Perhaps having the same emergency door opener latch at each door, but when you pull it instead of it immediately popping the door open the train operator gets a warning that someone wants to open the door and the operator can either approve or deny it, and if the operator doesn't respond within a certain amount of seconds the door will open automatically.

[Nick]

I had crazy people acting erratically on my train cars at both 4:00 PM and 8:30 PM today. After a while it's really started to make me feel like I'm the one losing my mind.

Thank you for driving the train.

[mattaudio]

I hope someday once again the train will be safe enough for me to take my kids on a ride. They'd love it. I used transit all the time in the Before [2020] Times, and a few times since. At this point I'm not comfortable taking my family on the train.

[Bakken2016]

I hope someday once again the train will be safe enough for me to take my kids on a ride. They'd love it. I used transit all the time in the Before [2020] Times, and a few times since. At this point I'm not comfortable taking my family on the train.

As one who rides both the Blue and Green lines, I almost never have a problem on the Blue Line now. It's alway usually the Green Line. Though the Green Line had issues prior to 2020 as well.