Last Friday at the St. Paul operations and maintenance facility in Lowertown, new staff officially graduated from the 10-week training program that prepared them to start operating light-rail trains around the Twin Cities.
With 15 graduates, the class of October 2024 was larger than it had been in years, and so it was a banner day that attracted Metro Transit’s top brass. The assembled supporters filled the reception area of the office and maintenance complex for a half-hour ceremony, followed by burritos and cake.
The pomp marked the agency’s dogged efforts to overcome a prolonged staffing problem, a barrier to transit that’s been lingering for years. It also reflects an era of workforce shortages that has rebalanced the scales between workers and companies in every industry, especially for stressful careers in public service. But if Metro Transit can train people at this rate, and keep staff happy, they’ll finally deliver promised service levels.
Post-COVID shifts
It’s a truism that the COVID pandemic transformed transit in the US, but most people probably don’t understand to what degree this is true. Most obviously, the work-from-home trend dramatically upended assumptions about how people move around cities, where and when, and whether “offices” should even be a systemic focus. That’s a big deal that is just starting to change agency plans, leading to wholesale shifts in priorities.
The workforce shortage is another huge post-COVID problem. The pandemic was hard on frontline workers and decimated staffing numbers. The extra stress of pandemic service placed added pressure on drivers and operators, increased the vulnerability of older workers on the brink of retirement, and left transit agencies in a scheduling lurch. These institutions have always been dependent on large everyday workforces and, in cities like Chicago, they’ve been forced to cut service for years simply because nobody was available to drive the buses or run the trains.
Those kinds of cuts can spiral into declining ridership, where poor service drives people away from transit, catalyzing further declines. Metro Transit has been trying to avoid this fate, and one big part of the picture is recruiting new staff. In addition to the usual approach around increased benefits and pay – light-rail operators start at about $29 an hour, up from $21.80 a few years ago – agency leaders have focused on the more ephemeral parts of employment: institutional culture and morale.
“Everybody wants people with a CDL,” said Metro Transit Chief Operating Manager Brian Funk, referring to the coveted commercial driving license, a requirement for many transportation jobs. “Even though you started with us, there’s alway going to be someone else whispering over their shoulder about how much better it is [somewhere else].”
This is an issue for drivers, but Metro Transit’s labor crunch isn’t just for the front-of-the-house staff. A separate staffing problem involving mechanics is becoming even more acute than the driver issues. All of the agency’s buses and trains require constant work to stay in service, and ideally the agency would have around 300 mechanics working at their various garages and bays. Right now they’re down about 60 wrench-wielders, a shortfall of 20%.
“The existing team is doing a great job of keeping up, but it’s not sustainable long-term,” said Brian Funk, chief operating officer for the agency. “A couple of years ago we launched an apprenticeship program for that as well, and that first class of a dozen is set to graduate in December.”
The resulting situation presents a juggling challenge for agency planners around when and where to add limited service. The mechanic shortfall is one reason that the light-rail system has been using two-car trains for the past year. Each one of the massive rail vehicles must be inspected based on the number of miles traveled, and with fewer vehicles on the tracks daily, overworked mechanics get a break.
Compared to most workplaces, the agency’s solutions for its labor problem focus inside-the-house, retraining and reaching out from within existing networks. For example, apprenticeship and training efforts bring in younger or mid-career staff to learn on the job. Thanks to a new labor contract signed in 2022, light-rail operators no longer have to have been bus drivers before training on trains. That move dramatically shortens the pipeline for new staff.
During the 10-week light-rail course, trainees receive their CDL before moving on to learn the rules of the rails. These include new sets of signals, manuals for train operation, and an extensive agency rulebook. A few weeks in, they finally start operating the vehicles themselves. (Pro tip: Do not call it “driving” the train; even columnists will be reprimanded.)
New staff graduate from the 10-week training program that prepared them to start operating light-rail trains around the Twin Cities.
A diverse “transit family”
In past years there have only been one or two graduating trainees per class, so the class of 15 graduating last week was unique.
“They have our most experienced staff ensuring that they’re going well, approaching each station, doing all the requisite rules, ringing the bell, operating the doors, keeping an appropriate dwell time, reading the signals, all of that,” said Funk, describing the long list of details to master. “Starting tomorrow, they’ll be operating on their own, and that whole process is what allows us to increase frequency.”
According to people I’ve talked to, the most stressful part of train operation is the low level chaos on the streets, particularly along the Green Line running down the median of University Avenue. Making sure that turning drivers and people on foot stay clear of the tracks is an endless job. If it seems like the train operators are being aggressive with their horns and bells, that’s why.
Transit people like to talk about themselves as a large “transit family,” and this means cultivating networks and connections that can become multi-generational. In some cases the metaphor is a bit more literal. One of new graduates, Cornell King, is the son of a long-time bus driver. Both father-and-son Kings were in attendance, and when Cornell held up his graduation certificate, he was met with raucous applause.
The new class has a range of ages and backgrounds. Some of the graduates are in their 20s and starting their careers, and others have decades of work experience. About a third of the group are women, par for the course in the industry, but two already had served as bus drivers. Over half of the new operators are people of color, reflecting the diversity of both the agency’s larger workforce and its clientele.
“I know you have bogeyman stories in your mind, but this is a brand new adventure,” ATU President David Stiggers, who leads the union representing transit staff, said at the ceremony. “It’s a lot of ebbs and flows in this position, but congratulations, you have progressed over the very first hurdle, and now you’re about to embark on the second phase of becoming an operator. Go out there and feel, see, touch how this really works.”
The message was reinforced by Metro Transit General Manager Lesley Kandaras, who traveled by train from the Near North Minneapolis headquarters to attend. She seemed well aware that keeping each operator as happy as possible was a big part of her job and critical to keeping service levels intact for people waiting at stations across town.
“We touch lives each and every day,” Kandaras told the group of graduates. “I know it’s not an easy job, but we are here to support you. We value what you’re doing, and offer congratulations.”
Bill Lindeke is a lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Geography, Environment and Society. He is the author of multiple books on Twin Cities culture and history, most recently St. Paul: an Urban Biography. Follow Bill on Twitter: @BillLindeke.
