A transportation engineer once explained to me the principle of “dogfooding,” the idea that the people who design products should also be regular users. In the case of dog food manufacturing, that might be a discomfiting idea, but for transit planning, it makes perfect sense. You learn a lot about how systems work by using them every day, watching the patterns that emerge and surrounding yourself with the details of design.
I suspect this is one reason why the recent call to action about the Twin Cities light rail system from the Star Tribune’s editorial board is so off target. I’m willing to bet that I’ve taken more rides than all seven board members combined over the last three years, because this series of editorials is tone deaf about how rail transit works in the Twin Cities.
To be fair, the list of eight recommendations provided by the editorial board isn’t entirely wrong. Prescriptions like better data sharing, more fare enforcement and a clear code of conduct are good ideas. Metro Transit, the agency that runs the region’s transit, is already working on these things, and can certainly use a dose of urgency. But the editorial board’s biggest priority idea, installing fare gates as a “force multiplier” for policing, is a massive dud. I’ve rarely seen something so misguided be taken so seriously.
Pretty much technically impossible
The main reason why turnstile gates are nonstarters has to do with the design of the Twin Cities light rail system itself. The vast majority of the light rail system was built largely at-grade. Stations are integrated with the sidewalks and streets of the Twin Cities and are built around “low floor” train vehicles, where the doors open only 14 inches off the street. The platforms are thus less intrusive, with few large ramps and reduced visual impact on the streetscape, but they also become quite open to anyone.
It’s important to point out that low-floor, low-impact stations are a feature, not a bug. High-floor trains like those in St. Louis or (half of) Denver are raised almost 40 inches, making the systems much less flexible. They require intrusive stations in order to be used by anyone with mobility challenges or luggage, which I suppose makes them easier to secure. Having lower stations that are relatively seamlessly part of their built environments — dare I say pleasing to the eye? — also means that they’re very accessible to the public. This is a big difference between the two systems.
Imagine the kind of fencing you’d need to ensure compliance for “roto-gate-type turnstiles” in the Twin Cities. It would make streets like University Avenue look like a war zone, and would likely still be porous for anyone willing to clamber up 14 inches. Because of the low-floor vehicles, the one part of the system where you literally cannot erect a fence — the tracks where the trains go — will likely always be accessible by any able-bodied person.
Metro St. Louis
Rendering of a transit station under St. Louis’ proposed “Secure Platform Plan.”
Where does social order come from?
This is not to discount problems on the light rail system, where the root of the matter is the elusive goal of creating public order. But I believe the vast majority of public safety concerns on the light rail could be solved by simply returning to regular fare checking, on both trains and (equally importantly) on platforms.
Fifteen years ago, before I went to graduate school to study urban geography, I had a temporary job with Metro Transit auditing the police checking fares. I was paid minimum wage to ride the Blue Line from end to end, tallying how many times police checked fares and how fastidious they were when they did so. It was a cake job for someone interested in transit, but for almost 20 years, fare checking was rather mundane. It’s a fundamental part of transit systems all over the world, from Berlin to Buffalo, and it’s something that’s been sorely missing.
I know enough about the history of policing to take the official fare checking stats from Metro Transit with a grain of salt. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, I’ve taken the Green Line hundreds of times from Frogtown to the University of Minnesota, and can count the number of times I’ve seen a fare checked on two fingers. Even then, it was always in the least problematic parts of the system, close to the U of M campus. As the editorial board’s Patricia Lopez reported, it’s an open secret in St. Paul that light rail fare is free and enforcement of rules is almost entirely absent.
That’s what needs to change, not through elaborate fencing, but through the everyday presence of some kind of authority.
MinnPost photo by Bill Lindeke
West Bank light rail station on the Green Line.
Resetting expectations about this critical public space, so that everyone understands that the light rail system is for transportation rather than intoxication, is going to take work. Metro Transit has rightly been cautious about sending their police force to do a job that’s more deftly done by others. An incident like the 2009 killing of Oscar Grant at Oakland’s Fruitvale Station would be tragic and a disaster. What we need instead is a more Minnesotan approach: a little common sense and some community response to maintaining social niceties.
Bring on Transit Service Intervention Project
Looking forward a few years and comparing the light rail systems of St. Louis and Twin Cities, one with highly securitized gates and one without, I’m confident that the Twin Cities rail system will be miles ahead on both ridership and equity. Before the pandemic, the Green Line was the national leader in light rail ridership per passenger mile. Once the agency returns to regular fare inspection, including on station platforms, the Twin Cities will again be a national leader.
I’m also confident that the Metropolitan Council will not take the editorial board’s bait, seemingly designed to rile up the interminable fight over policing. At the Met Council’s recent monthly meeting, where Metro Transit reported on its security plans, commissioners asked many of the right questions about policing, social services and station design.
The solution is not complicated, but it’s also not easy. It will involve police and social workers coordinating across multiple jurisdictions, in at least three cities, to change social expectations eviscerated over the last three years. But you don’t have to spend $50 million chasing an impossible and rather damning infrastructural chimera. Instead, the Transit Service Intervention Project cannot come soon enough. As a light rail regular, I’ve long waited for the train to return to its pre-pandemic normal. We need both fare enforcement and (something the newspaper never once mentioned) a return to 10-minute frequency.
Last night, taking the train home, it pulled into the Hamline Avenue station and, as almost always happens, someone began holding the door open. The conductor got on the loudspeaker and announced, “You know, everyone else is going somewhere, so get out of the door.”
Within seconds, the doors beeped and closed shut. The train sped off to the east, and a few minutes later I was walking into my warm home.
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No, turnstile gates on the light rail are not a good idea - MinnPost
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