It’s known both inside Metro Transit and among many riders as the Party Car.
On a three-car light rail train, the middle car is farthest from the cabs on both ends where the operators work. When the train changes direction, they switch ends without entering the middle car, which tends to attract riders who are more likely to smoke or break other rider rules. As such, riders who want to avoid those behaviors steer clear of it.
“You’re brave,” a smiling train operator told Rep. Brad Tabke, DFL-Shakopee, on Thursday after he had ridden in the middle car on a trip from the Capitol to Union Depot. It’s where a Metro Transit press conference was being held to announce the latest in safety improvements. Tabke’s middle car had been quiet but smoky, and the trip took longer than scheduled because of frequent door-holding at stations — a common complaint by light rail riders.
Metro Transit brass knows of the middle-car problem. And they hope expansion of security efforts that have been underway intensely since last June will ease that and other safety issues. Thursday the regional transit agency announced that what are called TRIP agents (for Transit Rider Investment Program) will begin training on the system. These non-police personnel can check fares, remind riders of behavior rules and call sworn transit police if needed.
Wearing royal blue jackets with a shoulder patch identifying them to riders, the workers will check fares, inform riders of the new rules of behavior and call sworn transit police officers if necessary. They will be on vehicles and platforms from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.
But starting as soon as early summer, another solution to the middle-car problem could be to get rid of the middle car. The familiar three-car trains could become two-car trains, a configuration that was tried in the summer of 2022. Metro Transit usually makes changes to its service quarterly.
“We’re very aware that light rail in general, particularly in the middle car, has a lot of people who aren’t following the rules and laws,” said Lesley Kandaras, the general manager of Metro Transit. “Part of the TRIP agent launch is that it will give us additional people on the system — additional eyes and ears — they will be able to hopefully deter that type of behavior.”
Kandaras said she hears from riders about the middle car when she and other top staff have listening sessions on vehicles and platforms. “But I’ll be honest. I’ve had issues on all three cars. It’s why we need more people out there.
“I’m hoping we start to see this virtuous cycle where we deter bad behavior, more people ride more often, then there are more people around and it makes it less comfortable to break the rules because there are more riders,” Kandaras said.
After announcing the rollout of the TRIP agents, Kandaras acknowledged that safety on the system is not where she wants it to be.
“As excited as we are today to be able to talk about this new layer of presence we’re bringing to our system, we also know we have a lot of work yet to do,” she said. “I hear from riders every day, I ride the system, and I know we still have a lot of behavior that is illegal. We’re not providing a consistently safe experience that people expect.”
Two-car trains could help with safety, she said. But the primary reason for the shift would be to resolve another common complaint from riders: frequency of service. The rollout of two-car trains would coincide with a shortening of time between trains, dubbed headways in transit speak. The current 15-minute space between trains will become 12 minutes. The additional service is needed to compensate for the reduced capacity from losing one of three cars. Each car on the Green Line has 61 seats but has a capacity of 230 including standing. So a three-car train can hold 690 riders, a two-car train 460.
“But it allows for more-frequent service that we know riders are interested in,” she said.
There is no final decision nor a firm date, but Kandaras said the “current thinking” is by summer. The change is dependent on the agency continuing to add more light rail operators and train them.
Brian Funk, chief operating officer for Metro Transit, said the system has enough equipment to increase frequency.
“If you move from three cars every 15 minutes to two cars every 12 minutes, plus having some extras for swap outs, it’s the exact same number of pieces of equipment,” Funk said. “It’s equipment neutral.”
As for safety concerns, Funk said “there are some side benefits to that, but it’s not the primary reason.”
The TRIP agents are the result of legislation passed in May and sponsored by Tabke. His bill, incorporated in the large transportation omnibus bill, used a two-step plan to increase safety. The first was an intensive and visible use of teams including social workers, addiction counselors and the agency’s homelessness action team to get help to riders who use the trains as a refuge. It was then followed by more patrols by transit police, community service officers and now TRIP agents, the latter two groups working to increase fare checks. Fare violations now come with a $35 ticket similar to a parking ticket rather than a $180 misdemeanor charge that county attorneys rarely prosecuted.
Metro Transit has been trying to convince the Legislature to move from criminal citations to administrative fine for five years but met resistance from Republican lawmakers. Passing the system last year is one of the results of a DFL trifecta where the House, the Senate and the governor’s office are held by one party.
The same safety program contracts with nonprofit groups including violence interveners and addiction counselors to connect troubled riders with services. And a new code of conduct is being advertised — including by using kids’ voices to tell people not to smoke — to increase compliance, with ticketing and arrests likely to follow.
For now, the TRIP personnel work for the same private security company that has been hired to add security at some especially troublesome transit stations. Under a new contract with the Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 1005, the jobs will gradually be taken over by full-time agency workers represented by the ATU.
Plain clothes officers
Metro Transit Police Chief Ernest Morales III said Thursday that he understands that uniformed officers sometimes are not able to see people who smoke on vehicles or violate other rules and law. That’s because their presence on platforms gives notice to riders that police are boarding. He said the agency is aware that people who use the system to deal drugs have an informal network that shares officer locations.
So the agency does use officers out of uniform to observe illegal behaviors but also to locate people with arrest warrants.
“They direct our police officers to identify individuals that we know have warrants,” Morales said. “They’re calling out the individuals.”
“We do use plain clothes sometimes so you don’t know where there is a police officer, where he’s going to come out. We want the element of surprise, and we incorporate that in warrant sweeps as well.”
Tabke said he thinks the program is working as he intended but admitted that it is a process after several years of low-levels of enforcement of fare and behavior.
“We’re not where we need to be yet in making sure we are welcoming and inviting everyone onto the trains,” he said. “We hope that as this goes forward, we have more TRIP agents on the trains, making sure they are out there every single day, talking to folks, helping the people who need help and making sure everyone is a good friend and good neighbor and good transit rider.”
Peter Callaghan
Peter Callaghan covers state government for MinnPost. Follow him on Twitter @CallaghanPeter or email him at pcallaghan@minnpost.com.
