los Angeles A warm spring evening in Los Angeles. From the North Hollywood station of the “Red Line” with its commuter parking lots you can reach downtown with its imposing office towers in 20 minutes by train. Much faster than by car. A ragged figure crouches in every second or third row of seats on the ready-to-go train bound for Union Station. Unshaven, messy hair, shoes optional. It stinks.
As the doors close, crack pipes are unwrapped and joints lit. In the adjacent wagon flows under a row of four, packed with suitcases and plastic bags, a small trickle. Arrived at the Union Station terminus, a dozen police officers in protective vests with leather gloves, batons, tasers and firearms are waiting on the platform. They empty the train in a friendly but unequivocal manner, accompanying the passengers to the exit.
Public transport in the USA, long neglected by politicians, is an adventure – and its dangers are currently on everyone’s lips. It’s been less than two months since a passenger on the New York subway detonated smoke grenades and shot around indiscriminately. Ten people are hit.
A suspect who denies the perpetrator is in custody. Among other things, he is said to have commented in online videos on how easy it was to commit crimes in the subway system. Smoke grenades and gunfire on a train from Brooklyn again this week.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
Many do not feel safe on public transport.
(Photo: Bloomberg)
At the end of May, a man shot and killed Wall Street banker Daniel Enriquez on the subway in Manhattan on his way to work. And in June, New York City Mayor Eric Adams personally calls 911 after his sister called him for help. She had stood next to a group in hoodies on the ferry to Manhattan. One of them whispered to another “don’t shoot yet”. The mayor sent the police.
Workers do not want to go back to the office for fear of violence on the subway
Actually, the current conditions would be ideal for a revival of local public transport after the pandemic: gasoline prices are at record levels, spare parts for cars have become more expensive, and more and more sections of Californian highways are subject to a fee. Inflation eats away at income. Prices for Uber or Lyft have doubled or tripled since 2019.
And yet, on average, only a good 60 percent of the passenger numbers of 2019 will be reached. Those who can avoid buses and trains – and continue to force their employer to work from home. Adams warns that without safe public transportation systems, the huge office towers in downtown America would never be able to fill up again.
Eric Adams had Company bosses publicly urged to recall their employees to Manhattan offices.
(Photo: IMAGO/Future Image)
Just days before the spectacular subway murder of the Goldman Sachs banker, the mayor had publicly called on company bosses to call their employees back to their Manhattan offices and set a good example. “We’ll get him on the subway,” Adams said of JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon in an interview with the Financial Times. But to this day no one has seen him there.
>>Read also: Home office forever: Silicon Valley doesn’t want to go back to the office
The “Partnership for New York”, an association of private employers, surveyed around ten thousand workers in and around New York. Increasing insecurity, especially in mass transit systems, is cited as the single biggest reason for not returning to inner cities to work or shop.
74 percent of those surveyed stated that security was constantly going downhill. Mayor Adams was once a simple subway cop himself. “When I did that, the rules were also enforced. This is no longer the case. But we will now reintroduce it,” he promises.
Transport company operates its own shelters for the homeless
Back to Los Angeles. Opened in 1939 and extensively restored, Union Station in LA is one of the most beautiful train stations in the USA and used to be accessible 24 hours a day. Today it is closed at night, all seating is locked and guarded all day and can only be used by those waiting with a valid ticket. The same applies to the green and outdoor areas. Early in the morning, when the doors open, a stampede of street dwellers is tolerated, occupying practically all washing facilities and toilets for two hours.
Local transport crimes also made headlines here this year: In January, 70-year-old Sandra Shells, who has used public transport all her life, was caught. Without warning, a homeless man jumps on the old woman waiting for her bus at Union Station. Union Station is one of the central hubs of public transport. The man hit her, knocking her to the ground, severely injuring her head and dying.
Ticket and access controls have practically only been carried out on paper for years.
(Photo: AP)
In March, a homeless man rammed a waiting passenger onto the tracks from behind for no apparent reason at the 7th Street Metro Interchange. The victim required treatment for head injuries and broken ribs. An emergency stop of rail traffic prevented worse. For 2021, data from operator LA Metro already showed a 36 percent increase in violent incidents from the previous year, according to the LA Times. Aggravated assault, murder and even rape rose for the second year in a row.
According to studies, most of the problems are caused by the proliferation of hard drugs such as crack and fentanyl, which often make addicts unpredictable when they are in involuntary withdrawal without “substance”.
In desperation, in March 2021, the Metro itself began running homeless shelters to get the homeless off the trains. But in January 2022, Metro manager Nicole Englund announced sobering results: “There was no significant reduction in the number of homeless people in the system.”
Meanwhile, costs are skyrocketing. A sleeper program launched in 2018 had an initial budget of $1.2 million and is now eating up to $27 million. Money that the city should actually raise, not the transport company.
The passengers don’t come back
In Silicon Valley, the BART regional transit system faces bankruptcy. During the pandemic, passenger numbers fell by up to 80 percent and have only partially recovered since then. Even before that, the situation was catastrophic.
Between 2014 and 2019, the number of violent assaults and assaults on stations and trains increased by 115 percent, according to BART. Now, passengers just won’t come back — regardless of whether some Silicon Valley companies try to lure their employees back to their desks with free concerts, free lunches, snacks or wellness offers.
Although Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland and New York are particularly hard hit by violence on public transport, they are not the only problem cities.
(Photo: AP)
Ticket and access controls have practically only been carried out on paper for years. Under the eyes of the station managers, groups of people jump over the waist-high “barriers” when a train arrives. Hardly anyone pays anymore. “We’re strictly forbidden to ask passengers about tickets,” says the manager of the Fruitvale station in Oakland. “It’s far too dangerous.” The police come twice a day for an hour and check. But the officials always came at the same time, and the times had “got around long ago.”
Although Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland and New York are particularly hard hit, they are not the only problem cities. Denver, Colorado, is planning a radical remodeling of its largest bus terminal. For the first time there will be a closed area that can only be entered with a ticket. The police presence is massively expanded. Over 700 people have been arrested at the train station since the beginning of the year.
Possible alternative: affordable tickets for everyone
Seattle, home of Amazon, relies on a “soft” approach to fare dodgers. The plan calls for more warnings to be issued before there are any consequences. The sentence for multiple offenders should increase more slowly. It is said that many have no choice but to drive to their poorly paid minimum-wage jobs without a ticket.
A new, reduced price level for the lowest earners is introduced. Unpaid fines should no longer be assigned to professional debt collectors. The aim is to prevent unpaid tickets from throwing whole families into existential crises.
A bus driver in Los Angeles sees little choice but to do away with paid fares altogether. He has been driving one of the small, blue-and-white DASH shuttle buses from Chinatown to downtown for years. Since Corona, the ride has been free. “And I hope it stays that way,” he adds. “After all, I’m just a driver and not an elite fighter,” complains the man, who doesn’t want to give his name, angrily. “People come in here and they’ll go crazy if you ask them to pay 25 cents for a ride. Orgies of violence are taking place on the bus. For 25 cents!”
Whether the city raises fares again at some point or not, he doesn’t care at all. “I won’t ask anyone for their ticket here anymore. nobody. Never.”
More: America summit in Los Angeles turns into a disaster for the USA