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Metro Transit ramps up light rail enforcement efforts
Crime along transit system is trending downward, but agency seeks to improve the train experience for riders.
ST PAUL, Minn. — If you ride a Metro Transit light rail train expect a more visible presence of different types of uniformed personnel, including sworn officers, community service officers, contract security and others looking to help passengers in a crisis and make sure they pay.
That’s thanks, in part, to a change in state law that allows non-sworn officers to do fare checks and write civil citations. It’s all part of what the agency is calling the Transit Rider Investment Program.
“With this new approach, our CSOs have inspected over 1,900 fares and issued about 190 citations just in the first week alone,” Metro Transit General Manager Leslie Kandaras told reporters outside Union Depot Tuesday.
The Met Council Wednesday will consider a new rider code of contact, which will be printed on large signs posted throughout the transit system. It makes it clear a variety of activities aren’t allowed on Metro Transit buses and trains, including smoking, doing drugs, playing loud music, littering and urinating.
“These revised rules for riding will provide more opportunity to clearly set and communicate expectations for everyone who’s riding Metro Transit,” Kandaras explained.
She asserted the combination of community service officers, contract agents through Allied Security and outreach workers from the Transit System Intervention Project is having an effect on how riders view their trips. All of these actions will free up sworn officers to spend more time preventing and responding to criminal activity.
“We hear from our riders that having more official presence on the system helps contribute to their sense of safety, so we think growing this Transit Rider Investment Program will help riders continue to feel safe and comfortable while riding.”
Metro Transit Police Chief Ernest Morales III says that crime on the transit system has dropped by 32% since the beginning of the year. He asserts having more people on trains and platforms taking part in mainly positive interactions with riders will drive that number down further.
“Our plan is simple: more people in more places,” Morales told reporters.
“We feel by having our CSOs out there, uniformed presence, as well as supplemental security that people will feel safe because they’ll have a friendly face around.”
Morales and Kandaras pointed out Metro Transit has followed a mandate from state lawmakers to improve the rider experience, and to partner with a variety of nonprofits and local governmental entities to address those passengers who are experiencing homelessness or other crises.
“Community service officers will be equipped to help in particular a mental health crisis, substance abuse disorder, and have the tools to supply housing and job opportunities.”
He said one advantage of adding more CSOs to the mix is to have a pool of potential transit police recruits.
“We believe if we focus on our community service officer recruitment plan that in the future three years from now, we’ll have a steady resource pool of candidates we can pull our police officers from,” Morales remarked.
Ridership is nowhere close to pre-pandemic levels, and many of those weekday commuters of yesteryear are still working from home. But the number of riders has been rising steady on both the Blue Line and the Green Line, according to Metro Transit.
Metro Transit is inviting riders to take part in one of these listening sessions next month:
- Tuesday, Jan. 9: 1:30 p.m. – 4 p.m., Blue Line
- Wednesday, Jan. 10: 7 a.m. – 1:30 p.m., Green Line
- Thursday, Jan. 11: 11 a.m. – 1 p.m., Blue Line
- Friday, Jan. 12: 7 a.m. – 8:30 a.m., Green Line
Chief Morales, Kandaras and Met Council Chair Charlie Zelle all appeared at the State Capitol Tuesday for an interim hearing held by the House Transportation Committee.
Lawmakers wanted an update on the agency’s multi-pronged efforts to attract riders back to the system, and to reduce criminal activity on trains and buses.
“We hear from property owners along the lines, from the airport personnel, from people that use our facilities that we’re improving,” Chair Zelle told the panel.
“We’re not where we need to be, but we are definitely making headway.”
Morales said police officers have spent more time riding on the trains. They’ll park their patrol cars near the track, hop on the train for a few stops and then catch another train back to their vehicles.
Rep. Brad Tabke, a Shakopee Democrat, asked if Metro Transit was finding a good balance between enforcing the laws and treating homeless riders with dignity.
Kandaras and Morales both laid out in detail how the new initiatives have been working. They supplemented their testimony with this illustrated report.
Rep. John Petersburg, a Waseca Republican, asked Morales why enforcement efforts were focused more heavily on the Blue Line initially, as opposed to the Green Line.
The chief said it was based in part on his experience coming to Minnesota for the first time, riding the Blue Line before he was even hired. He worried about conditions on that train, which runs from Mall of America to downtown Minneapolis, passing through the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on the way.
“We decided we would send a message that we are committed to cleaning up the perception of our light rail system, and then spreading that around,” Morales explained.
The crash happened when a Suburban pulling a trailer failed to stop at a stop sign, Minnesota State Patrol said.
WAUKENABO, Minn. — Two people from Minnetonka died in a crash Friday in Aitkin County while others, including children, were hurt.
According to Minnesota State Patrol, it happened at the intersection of Highway 169 and Grove Street/County Road 3 in Waukenabo Township at approximately 5:15 p.m.
A Suburban pulling a trailer was driving east on County Road 3 but did not stop at the stop sign at Highway 169, authorities said. The vehicle was struck by a northbound GMC Yukon. Two other vehicles were struck in the crash, but the people in those two cars were not injured.
In the Suburban, the driver sustained life-threatening injuries, according to State Patrol. Elizabeth Jane Baldwin, 61, of Minnetonka, and Marlo Dean Baldwin, 92, of Minnetonka, both died. Officials said the driver of the vehicle, a 61-year-old from Minnetonka, has life-threatening injuries.
There were six people in the Yukon when the crash occurred. The 44-year-old driver, as well as passengers ages 18, 14, and 11, sustained what officials described as life-threatening injuries. The other two passengers have non-life-threatening injuries.
Alcohol is not believed to be a factor in the crash, but officials said Elizabeth Jane Baldwin had not been wearing a seatbelt.
Among those at the start line this year will be Alex Vigil.
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Pixar’s second installment of the movie features characters we’ve already met — Joy, Sadness and Anger — and gives them a new roommate named Anxiety.
MINNEAPOLIS — Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” universe plays out inside the mind of the movie’s adolescent protagonist, Riley.
She plays a kid from Minnesota whose family uproots her life by moving to San Francisco. But did you know that what plays out in Riley’s mind actually comes from the mind of a real-life Minnesotan?
“You are one of us!” said Breaking the News anchor Jana Shortal.
“Yes, I am!” said Burnsville native and the movie’s creator and director, Kelsey Mann.
Mann was chosen for the role by ANOTHER Minnesotan — Pete Docter, the man behind the original movie, “Inside Out.”
“I don’t know if Pete asked me to do this movie because I was from Minnesota and he was from Minnesota … I just think it worked out that way,” Mann said.
How two guys from the south metro made a pair of Pixar movies that would change the game is a hell of a story that began with Docter in 2015.
“He [Docter] was just trying to tell a fun story — an emotional, fun story — and didn’t realize how much it would help give kids a vocabulary to talk about things they were feeling because they are feeling those emotions, but they’re really hard to talk about,” Mann said.
Some parents, counselors and teachers might even tell you it did more good for kids than just entertain them. It unlocked their emotions and begged for what Mann set out to create at the beginning of 2020.
“That part was fun, particularly fun,” he said. “I think the daunting part was following up a film that everyone really loved.”
But Mann knew what he wanted to do with the movie’s follow-up, “Inside Out 2.”
“Diving into Riley’s adolescence … that was just fun,” he said.
This time around, Riley is 13, hitting puberty and facing all of what, and who, comes with it. The franchise’s second installment features characters we’ve already met — Joy, Sadness and Anger — and gives them a new roommate named Anxiety.
“I think that’s what’s fun about the ‘Inside Out’ world: You can take something we all know and give it a face,” Mann said. “We can give anxiety a name and a face.”
The film follows Riley’s emotions fighting it out for control of her life. Joy wants Riley to stay young and hold on only to joy, while anxiety is hell-bent on taking over Riley over at the age of 13 because as a lot of us know, that’s when anxiety often moves in.
“I always pitched it as a takeover movie, like an emotional takeover,” Mann said. “Anxiety can kind of feel like that; it can take over and kind of shove your other emotions to the side and repress them.”
For a kids’ movie, it’s hard to watch this animation play out, even when an adult has the keys to decide.
“I’m making a movie about anxiety and I still have to remind myself to have my anxiety take a seat,” Mann said.
All of our individual anxieties have a place in this world.
“The whole movie honestly is about acceptance. Both acceptance of anxiety being there and also of your own flaws,” said Mann.
Even for our kids, we have to remember that this is life.
Anxiety will come for them; it does for us all.
The “Inside Out” world just shows them it’s so.
