Met Council to vote on security guards at Metro Transit stations

INTERVIEWER: The Met Council is voting this evening on a contract with the security company to place guards at six bus and light rail stations. And Metro Transit announced yesterday it's closing the shelter at the Uptown Transit Station in Minneapolis until it has security there. The number of riders dipped significantly during the pandemic. And there's been a lot of talk about safety problems on buses, trains, and in the stations.

These troubles aren't helping Metro Transit recruit drivers either and getting ridership back to pre-pandemic levels. Drew Kerr is senior manager of communications for Metro Transit. And he's here to talk about the Met Council vote and the plan to close stations. Welcome, Drew. Thanks for coming on the show.

DREW KERR: Thank you for having me.

INTERVIEWER: So tell me a little bit about the Uptown Transit Station. What's been going on there? And what prompted this closure of the east side waiting area there?

DREW KERR: This is a location where for customers who are transferring from one bus to another, this is a place a stay, wait, wait get that next bus. It's also a place though over the last few years where we've seen other activity happening, people that are there that they're not to get a bus, but do lots of other things besides. So we now are really at a tipping point at that location where we felt we had to do something. And the something that we're doing now is closing the indoor waiting station until we are able to get security on site.

INTERVIEWER: You're going to make some other changes there I think too, right?

DREW KERR: Any time we were going to close a facility like this, we're going to take advantage of that time and make some improvements. So we'll get it all cleaned up, make some other repairs. So when it is able to reopen, the customers can notice that the facility overall has improved.

INTERVIEWER: And this is really kind of a junction there. I mean, it's on the greenway. A lot of people come and going there. But it's still pretty wintry. Are people just going to have to wait outside? Have you made accommodations for your customers there?

DREW KERR: We did. We put in a couple of shelters outside of the indoor waiting area exactly for the reason that you just discussed. So we know that weather is going to continue to be a factor here for a while. And so those shelters are there to provide some wind blockage. The shelter or the transit station is covered.

So there is that. That's going to be available as well. The real-time signs that at the transit station are also going to be visible to folks. So most of the amenities that people are used to will still be available in some degree. But, again, closing that indoor waiting area is not perhaps the elegant or ideal solution, but something we really felt we had to do to reset at that location.

INTERVIEWER: This isn't just about one transit station. You know, you've got another transit station that you closed last year after, unfortunately, a double murder there. That's the skyway connector building at the Central light rail-- Central Station light-rail stop in Saint Paul. You know, we also read about that high-profile assault at the Lake Street Station last month. I know your website-- I looked at it-- it shows that crimes have declined some in the last year, actually. But they're still significantly above long-term averages. What can you tell bus and train customers who see this closure that makes them, assures them that they're still safe?

DREW KERR: Well, I'm not going to presume to tell anybody that they should feel safe at a location. These are individual experiences. And we know we're hearing from our customers and from our own staff that they don't always feel safe when they're out and about on the system, and, in particular, at the locations where we plan to bring security-- as you mentioned, the Central Station, a couple of our Blue Line rail stations Uptown, Brooklyn Center Transit Center, Chicago Lake Transit Center. Those are the locations where we plan to be bringing security.

We already, of course, have a lot of staff at those locations, whether that's a police officer or transit supervisors who are in the field. But we're not resourced to the degree that we want to be. And so bringing in that extra supplemental security, we think, is really going to be helpful in adding that presence that we think is so important that does give people that better feeling of safety when they're waiting for a bus or train.

INTERVIEWER: Now, I think last fall you started a pilot program, added some security guards at a couple of stations. You went through the ones getting, perhaps getting more guards now. Did you see a difference there where you had this pilot project?

DREW KERR: We, for the first time, started having security at Franklin Avenue Station in September of last year. We chose that location for a couple of reasons. One, it's the place where historically we've seen a lot of calls for service, so police activity. It's also a place where our operators are getting on and off trains throughout the day into the evening. So there was a reason for choosing that location.

And we did. We have had a good experience since September with the use of security. We've seen a decline in calls for service at that location. You can notice that there's less damage to the station happening. So that was encouraging.

It was also a learning experience for us. What are the things that we need to do if we're going to make security a part of the program going forward? Security officers, like everybody who goes to work, need a place to rest, need a place to use the restroom.

Our stations and facilities, in some cases, they're not really built for that. So how do we accommodate that if this is going to be part of the program going forward? All of these questions we're just finding answers to. That's the purpose of the pilot and that's the purpose of continuing the learning experience here as we move forward.

INTERVIEWER: And the Met Council, as we've heard, is taking up this idea today. What's going to happen this afternoon at the Council?

DREW KERR: What we're bringing is a proposed contract. So with their approval, we'll continue to move forward with this and hopefully execute a contract. And then it will take a period of time to get the security officers actually in place. We hope to be able to provide that service here in the spring. And then from there, we'll be monitoring all the locations, of course, and looking at, what is the experience that is-- that people are having at these locations.

Is this working? What can we do to tweak it? This, again, is a kind of a new experience for us. So we're going to continue to learn and grow and adapt as we move forward.

INTERVIEWER: And I these issues have drawn a lot of attention at the capital. Lawmakers are pondering some changes, including kind of a three-month social services and security surge to push some of these issues back. What's Metro Transit doing now to address these issues?

DREW KERR: We have a safety and security action plan that was put into place last year. We're implementing just about every action item that's on that, in that security action plan. That primarily, for large part, is about building that presence-- so recruiting and retaining police officers, recruiting and retaining community service officers who are individuals are on a path to becoming a police officer--

INTERVIEWER: Glad to hear that. I'm sorry, we're going to-- we're coming to the end here. I'm going to have to cut you off there. Thanks for being here. I appreciate your time, Drew.

DREW KERR: Thank you so much.

INTERVIEWER: Yeah, we've been talking with Drew Kerr, senior communications manager for Metro Transit. For a deep dive on transit safety, check out yesterday's episode of MPR News with Angela Davis. You can find it at mprnews.org or wherever you get your podcasts.