Met Council moves to prioritize safety, equity on transit

This past month, the Metropolitan Council (Met Council) has worked to build community engagement around transit system it has been doing in partnership with the Citizens League over the past year, writes Met Council Chair Charlie Zelle. 

The council established a Metro Transit Police Work Group. This group of Met Council members will use the next six months to: 

• Digest the findings from the Citizens League. 
• Recommend measures to increase safety and security on the transit system. 
• Prioritize discussion of safety issues at public committee of the whole meetings. 

On Aug. 4, Met Council heard the initial findings from the Citizens League engagement work, and is anticipating a full report from the team when their work concludes this month. Early signs point to support for more people on transit vehicles and throughout the system to provide customer support and help deescalate conflict and solve problems. 

Zelle writes this feedback aligns well with what the council has been hearing from customers and frontline employees, including operators and maintenance staff. In response, Met Council announced an expansion of its investment in community service officers. These additional people on the system will both help solve problems and address concerns and questions customers have. Zelle writes the council hopes this creates the right balance between having someone who can proactively address situations and having a police officer who could be perceived as intimidating to some riders. 

Specific feedback helps move forward with clarity 

Participants in the survey also said that attention to some basic considerations will also help improve their feelings of safety: 

• Additional lighting at stations and stops; 
• Clean and well-maintained vehicles, stations and stops; 
• Emergency call buttons; 
• Enforcing smoking rules and other rider expectations; and 
• On-time reliability for buses and trains. 

Zelle writes this feedback helps get Met Council to a level of specificity that it can act on. 

Zelle notes there is still work to be done to address safety concerns among youth and the significant segment of participants who don’t feel safe when transit police are present on vehicles. In the work group, council members will discuss these considerations, as well as how it can provide information about priorities and performance related to policing on the transit system. 

Police Work Group will meet twice monthly 

The Police Work Group will meet twice a month on Friday mornings. The first meeting is Aug. 27. 

The safety of customers and employees is Met Council’s top priority, writes Zelle.  

“As we emerge from the pandemic and begin to serve more customers in the coming months, we’re committed to addressing these concerns and continuing this conversation,” Zelle wrote. “We plan to engage more regularly with our customers, business partners and neighbors to make sure we’re meeting expectations for a transit system we all have confidence in.”