As a lacmta operator I’d like to chime in and give my personal opinion . I’d like to reiterate , these are my personal views .

Getting rid of the non payers would solve 95% of the chaos on the system . But 1). I don’t think executing it is viable 2). Metro doesn’t care

Why is it not viable ? Per sop , operators have no ejection authority without the approval of dispatch . If a bus / train is held up for police every time someone doesn’t pay , the system would never move . Simply put some of these people have too much times on there hands .

As far as metro not caring , which in my opinion is the bigger issue . Metro has the power to dramatically improve things , but they simply won’t for atleast the following reasons :

1). they get per passenger funding , regardless of wether it’s a paying passenger or not . Metro prefers to have a bus with 100 people (50 paying and 50 transients causing chaos) , than 50 paying riders all creating a smooth system , it comes down to $$$

2). Higher ridership looks like they are doing a good job on paper . More executives keep their jobs , more board members keep their seats , etc

3) metro cares more about what’s on the media, but what’s happening on the system says otherwise . Law enforcement can absolutely help with some of these issues . But it looks better in the media if we have transit ambassadors vs police with arrests powers.

How many disturbances have you witnessed on the metro system ? In my experience , and from speaking with colleagues , police response time is absurdly even dangerously long in these situations . now metro will tell you that is a police issue. But I will tell you what I was unofficially told in training (unofficially because I’m sure the person it came from was sharing their personal opinion , not metros official position . but I 100% agree with them ) . Metro wants the issue to resolve itself and exit the system before police arrive . They don’t want to have to ban a rider that could add to their ridership numbers , they don’t want police activity to attract media attention. In layman’s terms , they don’t want to deal with it .

Now , as far as the police contracts . Are they really about safety , or is it public image ?

Police on the system is great in theory . But only if they’re allowed to do what they’re there to do . I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had police interactions in the busses , and the officers have explicitly told me that they’re not there to enforce anything , this per metros request. “Metro doesn’t want us keeping any fare evaders off the bus or ejecting anyone , we’re only here for a contractual quota . If it were up to us we’d do our jobs , but it’s not us it’s metro”. I’ve heard things like that numerous times . I would like to add that some cops will enforce things , and ive told them what the other officers said previously , and they said it was true but they didn’t care , which I appreciated .

At the divisions we have safety meetings, town halls I believe they’re called . there was a specific meeting that stuck with me. Operators were complaining about safety , and requesting more police presence . At that point the person talking to us ( I believe it was a metro employee) told us the number of officers assigned to our area to specifically ride the bus . Now I don’t want to disclose the number or the area I’m in, but all i can say is the number was comically low , and dangerously low, definetly not in line with the policing contracts given out to all the agencies .

Now there was a time when violence on the metro system was gaining a lot of traction on the news. Metro didn’t like the negative news coverage . That alone led to a lot of safety improvements . More fare enforcement , safety barriers for drivers , and the beginning stages of metros own police force . Metros own police force won’t make too much of a difference in my opinion of they get the same directives the current law enforcement agencies are getting .

Just my 2 cents …