Transit Crime

[Bakken2016]

Looks good to me.

Like yes that works for stations that aren't in the middle of a road. Just think of how much engineering would have to go into securing the Green Line stations along University Ave and the cost.

[grant1simons2]

What happens at the track? Does the train go through a turn style as well? What about at crossings? If I wanted to do drugs on a train and get a free ride I would just enter at the tracks and climb onto the platform.

I mean the trains only come every 15 minutes, it's not like it's a death trap. Sure, there are cameras at every platform, but I wouldn't care, it's going to take the cops another 10 minutes to get to me anyways.

[Tcmetro]

St. Louis' light rail is grade separated, so access to the tracks is relatively difficult.

[VacantLuxuries]

I love the zany thought process required to come to the conclusion that spending tens of millions our transit system doesn't have on turnstiles that can be easily avoided is somehow better than requiring the people we give an embarrassing percentage of our municipal budgets to actually get out of their cars and remove disruptive people from the trains.

[NickP]

Out of the box idea that just came to me, many train lines in Tokyo have female only cars during rush hour. What if we dedicate one car in the train to be more lax on enforcement of smoking, drugs, drinking, etc. The transit police would only have to patrol the other cars regularly, and if people are caught doing drugs or something in those cars, instead of arresting them and jamming up the justice system, they could direct them to the other car, where, instead of police, we could have representatives from various social service programs.

[alexschief]

I had some time to kill last evening, so I hopped on a bunch of trains and rode in each of the cars around downtown Minneapolis, and it was... a lot better? Maybe I just got lucky a bunch of times in a row, and certainly riding around rush hour probably lowered my chances, but there was not a single person smoking in any of the cars.

Anyway, they're not going to wall off the stations.

It would help if the legislature passes the fare checking reform. I suspect Metro Transit still has some work to do with reforming the culture and operations of the MTPD (They should figure how it was that they allowed their best officer to be railroaded out of the department). I expect the overall decline in anti-social behavior will continue, and that will help maybe most of all.

[grant1simons2]

Out of the box idea that just came to me, many train lines in Tokyo have female only cars during rush hour. What if we dedicate one car in the train to be more lax on enforcement of smoking, drugs, drinking, etc. The transit police would only have to patrol the other cars regularly, and if people are caught doing drugs or something in those cars, instead of arresting them and jamming up the justice system, they could direct them to the other car, where, instead of police, we could have representatives from various social service programs.

We could call it the tail and anyone who rides them would be known as tailies

[Record Machine]

I love the zany thought process required to come to the conclusion that spending tens of millions our transit system doesn't have on turnstiles that can be easily avoided is somehow better than requiring the people we give an embarrassing percentage of our municipal budgets to actually get out of their cars and remove disruptive people from the trains.

whynotboth.jpg

[Tiller]

Out of the box idea that just came to me, many train lines in Tokyo have female only cars during rush hour. What if we dedicate one car in the train to be more lax on enforcement of smoking, drugs, drinking, etc. The transit police would only have to patrol the other cars regularly, and if people are caught doing drugs or something in those cars, instead of arresting them and jamming up the justice system, they could direct them to the other car, where, instead of police, we could have representatives from various social service programs.

Tbh this is less dumb than trying to install turnstiles

[Hero]

Instead of adding turnstiles why not remove fares? The savings in equipment and maintenance personnel would be significant. Busses would load faster without people queuing up to pay and I bet the operators would enjoy not having to deal with the drama the fare boxes can cause.

To combat the drug use maybe bring them to detox? For a lot of users sobering up would be punishment enough to deter them from using on transit.

[Didier]

This thread is off the rails!

[grant1simons2]

[BoredAgain]

Drug use and fare evasion are completely separate and largely independent problems. Also turnstyles only work if there is someone there to stop people from evading them. If we had staffing available to sit at every train stop and arrest people hopping fences, then we could just put them on trains to arrest people doing drugs.

[Tiller]

It should be explicitly said that arresting people with the purpose of putting them in jail will not fix any drug problems, but instead will kick the can down the road ultimately making them worse.

If they're being arrested/detained because they're doing hard drugs on public transportation and don't want to voluntarily go to detox/treatment, to then force them to go, then they're at least getting some kind of help.

I couldn't tell you how effective a treatment program is when someone didn't willingly sign up for it, though it's gotta be better/more effective than prison.

[Tom H.]

https://www.startribune.com/a-one-point ... 600245868/

StarTribune published our very own Mr. Magrino's synopsis of the last few pages of this thread, in case anyone missed it.

(Unrelated to this topic, but in the print version this appeared right next to a letter lamenting the loss of the cultural institution known as Uptown Arby's in exchange for soulless apartments. Mark that on your bingo card.)

[Anondson]

It’s a good letter to the editor. Glad Nick wrote in!

[Anondson]

Comments are always wild but this got a laugh.

[amiller92]

What if we used LRT stations for emergency landing sites for space shuttles instead?

[John21]

I love that he says I feel like I’m losing my mind at the end and then there’s the link to the article comments.

[Silophant]

Reps. Elkins and Tabke will be introducing a bill to reform fare checking.