Two lessons for transit agencies in the past several days:
(1) Make a plan to never strand riders
(2) Think about an agency’s relationship with the police
(1) Make a plan to never strand riders
(2) Think about an agency’s relationship with the police
First: It is never OK to stop service in the middle of a day with minimal or no advance notice. Transit agencies have a responsibility to try to get people who rely on transit home. (Canceling service w/ advance notice can be OK if employers, schools, services shut down, too.)
Absolutely: Marches and police blockades can block buses. It’s dangerous for drivers to be in the middle of arson or vandalism. And it can be hard to figure out what to do in the moment -- if an agency is not prepared in advance, it may have limited options.
So every agency should have an alternate plan. It’s OK to tell people to walk a few blocks to a bus. It's OK to feed buses into the subway. It's OK to adapt on the fly, and to coordinate with the city to keep things safe. But just leaving people to walk 10 miles home is not OK.
(I've noted a real contrast between the efforts in many places to keep highways open and the lack of efforts in some places to keep transit open.)
Secondly: many of the communities that agencies serve, and many of the riders who they carry, do not trust the police, for good reason.
Never use uniformed, armed police officers to collect fares. Civilian fare inspectors can do the same.
Don't act as an arm of the police. Don't lend buses to the police to transport arrestees. Don't host law enforcement raids at stations.
And every agency that has a police department should be asking if the police act, dress, deploy as the allies of the riders or as their minders/antagonists/oppressors.
Do the police use the system, or do they cruise around in cars? Are they dressed more like bus drivers or more like soldiers? Are they overarmed? Do they live in the neighborhoods the agency serves, or commute in and out? Do they show up in pairs, or in swarms?
Is an agency trying to use police to solve problems that aren’t really police problems (like homelessness)? Is it treating transit infractions (like evading fares) as more serious than driving infractions (like paying meters)?
(Police are paying attention to what agency leadership wants. If the board and CEO talk constantly about fare evasion and crime and security, the police will react accordingly.)
Is there genuine civilian oversight? Are officers who violate the law and violate rights held accountable? Are accused officers accorded more rights than accused members of the public? Is the agency advocating for its riders when they are abused by police?
There are agencies that do this well. And examples close to home: Bus drivers are some of the best people I’ve ever met in terms of deescalating and defusing conflicts. That should be the goal of transit police, too. Police are there to serve riders, not the other way around.
And how does an agency know if it’s doing well? It asks riders. Asks people of color. Asks women. Asks LGBTQ. White men in positions of power really have no way to judge from their own experience how a police force is treating people — we’re the people who get treated well.
If you are part of a transit agency you should be spending time thinking about systemic racism and making sure you're part of the solution, not part of the problem.
I don’t think I have particular expertise on this -- others have done much more thinking about it and have much more experience. I welcome responses, and examples.(I've seen some agencies doing really well.) But I know for sure that transit agencies have lessons to learn.
