MN: What a week’s worth of rider text messages reveals about Metro Transit’s problems

A light-rail passenger boarded a Blue Line train full of fans leaving the Minnesota Twins’ Pride Day game one Saturday afternoon in June.

Within a few stops of Target Field, the passenger messaged Metro Transit’s Text for Safety program to report another rider spouting homophobic slurs.

“I love Metro Transit but I’m so tired of the amount of harassment riders have to put up with,” the passenger said.

The exchange, one of dozens from June reviewed by the Minnesota Star Tribune under the Data Practices Act, reveals what Metro Transit is up against as it tries to bring people back to a transit system that has suffered low ridership since the pandemic. As Metro Transit and partners pour resources into checking fares, connecting people to social services and policing more proactively, safety remains a concern for riders, especially on light rail.

Addressing those issues matters for the future of transit in the Twin Cities, where Republicans have tried to quash its expansion, citing crime, low ridership and billions of dollars in costs. The number of people taking Metro Transit trains and buses plummeted during the pandemic, and while ridership has recovered somewhat, it’s still just over half what it was a few years ago.

Reporting via the Text for Safety program gives riders a discreet way to alert Metro Transit when they see a problem on buses, light rail or at stations. The issues they raise range widely, from concerns about drug use and harassment to fights and calls for medical assistance for unconscious passengers. The agency’s employees respond in real time, sometimes dispatching transit police, to address the problem.

Reported crime on transit is down from its high in 2023, but Metro Transit’s most recent survey found that despite improvements less than half of riders reported feeling safe on trains and just over a third felt safe waiting at platforms.

“It would be impossible to overstate the importance of how people feel on our system, and as long as people are telling us they don’t feel safe, we have more work to do,” said Lesley Kandaras, Metro Transit’s general manager.

Overcoming that, transit advocates say, is key to getting riders to change how often they take transit — or if they take it at all.

The Star Tribune reviewed all 74 Text for Safety exchanges from light-rail riders from a week in June. The senders’ contact information was redacted. That month, light rail averaged 264,000 rides per week.

The messages don’t give a full picture of crime on the Blue and Green lines during that time. But they offer a window into behavior that concerns riders who use the texting service, often frequent passengers who are aware the program exists.

Nearly half of the exchanges were about drinking, smoking or drug use on the train or platforms.

Many incidents did not pose a direct threat to other riders’ safety but can cause uncomfortable conditions on trains and contribute to perceptions that bad behavior is tolerated.

“Those are the things that really impact, in my opinion, perception on the system, is those quality-of-life crimes,” said Metro Transit interim Police Chief Joe Dotseth.

Data shows the number of “quality-of-life”-type incidents fluctuating over time. When those numbers rise, it’s partly seasonal, Dotseth said, with troublemakers gravitating toward trains in colder months. But, he said, recent increases in enforcement also drive the number of crimes detected.

Metro Transit launched a transit ambassador program in February 2024, sending uniformed agents aboard trains to check fares, connect riders to social services and contact emergency services when needed. Recently, the Metropolitan Council approved nearly 24-hour security for several stations.

That’s in addition to increased police presence on and around the system, Dotseth said.

In recent months, at least 70% of calls for service on Metro Transit were initiated by officers, a steep increase from previous years.

“I would say that while we have work to do, we are making huge strides in improving the system,” Dotseth said. “We’re much more visible out there.”

Fewer than 10 text complaints from the first week in June were about violence or threats of violence.

But what people see on the train or bus, whether it’s mental health, alcohol, drug use or other incidents, can affect their decisions about how they use transit, such as which times of the day to ride or which stops to use, said Joan Hudson, a senior research engineer at Texas A&M’s Transportation Institute who is studying agencies’ efforts to improve riders’ sense of safety.

Many of the issues that transit agencies are dealing with are outgrowths of thorny societal problems, like homelessness and addiction, that transit agencies can’t solve by themselves.

“It’s a public space — it’s where you can expect everything to show up. It’s a good litmus test for what’s going on in larger society," said MJ Carpio, the executive director of transit advocacy organization Move Minnesota.

Complicating matters, behavior that makes one rider feel unsafe might not make another feel unsafe, Hudson said.

The same goes for some interventions, research suggests: Increased security presence makes most passengers feel more safe, but it has the opposite effect on a small share of riders.

Convincing riders who have had a bad experience to come back aboard, or ride more frequently and at more times of the day, can be tough.

“It’s hard to get rid of that perception,” Hudson said. “Transit agencies are often having to work extra hard to make sure that they inform people that these systems are working.”

Move Minnesota recently launched a campaign to change perceptions around transit, surveying Twin Cities residents this summer.

They found that both convenience and safety are keys to expanding public-transit use, with nearly 70% of respondents saying safer trains and buses would increase their likelihood of riding. Women were more likely than men to cite safety as a top priority.

Metro Transit’s own annual survey, last conducted late in 2024, suggests riders are noticing improvement, but safety remains a big concern.

The agency found 41% of riders reported feeling safe on trains, while 36% reported feeling safe waiting at platforms, up 8% and 7% respectively from the year before. A higher share of riders said they felt safe on buses and at bus stops.

This year, riders have told the Star Tribune they have noticed less loitering, smoking and drug use on trains.

Keiko Kawakami takes light rail several times a week, mostly during busy times, to get to work at the University of Minnesota. She said she usually opts to drive rather than ride the train if she’s by herself at night.

Kawakami said she hasn’t personally had bad experiences, but some of her colleagues and students have perceptions that the train is unsafe based on what they’ve seen or heard. Some of them opt to drive, she said.

When they ask, she tells them her experience during the day has been fine; trains have felt safer in recent months.

“Once they experience it, they might feel like, ‘Oh, it’s not as dangerous as I thought,’” she said. “I want them to give it a shot one more time.”

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