Who Are the Key Stakeholders?

Transit Agency Leadership and Boards

LA Metro’s board voted to make the ambassador program permanent after finding that ambassadors had “improved public safety and helped increase ridership on its transit system.” [3] D.C. Metro General Manager Randy Clarke described ambassadors as “another additive layer to make sure we have more visibility for safety, security and more thinking about the customer in everything we do.” [6]

Sacramento Regional Transit’s board voted unanimously to expand its ambassador program with a $1 million budget increase. Board member Roger Dickinson (who subsequently won election to the Sacramento City Council in November 2024) described the expansion as “calibrated to have the right level of response for the particular incident.” [4]

Illinois lawmakers passed the Northern Illinois Transit Authority Act in December 2025, mandating transit ambassador programs for the Chicago metropolitan region with implementation targeted for 2027. [Illinois Governor’s Office, December 16, 2025]

Transit Police and Law Enforcement Partners

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Deputy Chief of Police Ja’Son Scott told KQED: “We didn’t have all the tools as police officers to deal with all the issues that you see in BART, and it’s not always necessary for a police officer” to respond to these situations. He championed the Crisis Intervention Specialist program from his position as transit police deputy chief. [1]

LA Metro’s mission explicitly frames the division of labor: ambassadors “reserve law enforcement and armed responses to those incidents that truly warrant it.” [3]

The Sacramento fatal stabbing in June 2025 — where a transit ambassador killed a 16-year-old following an altercation — gave critics a concrete incident to point to when arguing that unarmed civilian roles require clearer scope limits, stronger screening, and explicit use-of-force boundaries. [CBS Sacramento, June 2025: https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/rancho-cordova-alleged-sacrt-employee-stabbing/]

Transit Operators and Frontline Workers

The Thurston County program documents ambassadors “supporting the operator” and ensuring “they can focus on driving safely while the ambassador assists passengers.” One Thurston County ambassador stated: “if drivers are having problems on a route consistently, they can ride the bus with that operator and help calm situations.” [7]

BART frontline crisis intervention specialists stated: “there needs to be 100 of us, not just 20.” [1]

Riders as Constituency

A Safer Cities rider survey found 63% of LA Metro riders who had encountered ambassadors reported feeling safer when they see them. [Safer Cities rider survey, 2023] Community groups in Los Angeles have called for a four-to-five-fold increase in the program budget to expand to bus routes. [LA Times editorial, May 2024]

A Safer Cities national poll found 81% of voters consider walking elderly and disabled riders to their cars “important” or “very important,” and 81% consider assisting elderly and disabled riders important. [8]

The Safer Cities / Data For Progress polling identifies named constituencies:

Elderly and disabled riders. 81% of voters rate assisting elderly and disabled riders as “important” or “very important,” with 48% calling it “very important.” [8]

Women traveling alone. 81% of voters rate the walking escort function as “important” or “very important.” [8]

People experiencing homelessness, mental health crises, and substance use issues. BART’s program specifically targets “people suffering from mental health, homelessness and substance-abuse issues” with crisis intervention specialists trained in appropriate response. [KQED, May 14, 2024] Ambassadors connect individuals to “social services and mental health nonprofits sprinkled throughout BART’s five-county service area” rather than arrest or removal. [KQED, May 14, 2024]

Regular commuters. The 63% of LA Metro riders who reported feeling safer when they see ambassadors represents the measured commuter constituency. [Safer Cities rider survey, 2023]

Social Service Providers and Nonprofit Partners

BART specialists connect people experiencing homelessness to “social services and mental health nonprofits sprinkled throughout BART’s five-county service area.” [1] BART’s newsletter characterized this as providing “boots on the ground outreach” that “police officers typically possess neither the training or experience needed to address.” [Safer Cities Transit Ambassadors Newsletter]

Mass Transit Magazine documented LA Metro’s service connection outcomes: the team “connected 2,709 people to interim or permanent housing, exceeding the agency’s goal… by more than 150 percent” in one year, and has “helped over 645,000 people” since the program launched in 2023. Homelessness on the Metro system dropped “between 37 and 39 percent” year-to-year, with the “outreach model driving the results.” [Mass Transit Magazine, 2024]

These downstream outcomes — housing connections, service referrals, homelessness reduction — depend on the social service ecosystem that transit ambassadors refer into. If shelter beds, mental health appointments, or substance use treatment slots are unavailable, the ambassador’s ability to complete a service connection is limited regardless of the quality of the transit-side engagement.

Workforce Backgrounds

Programs recruit from backgrounds that emphasize service and crisis response over enforcement experience. LA Metro Transit Ambassador David Moreland brought experience as “a combat veteran and former medic” that prepared him for medical emergencies. [LA Daily News, June 7, 2024] The Safer Cities Q&A documents that programs seek individuals with crisis intervention training, mental health expertise, lived experience with homelessness or addiction, and strong de-escalation skills. [Safer Cities Transit Ambassadors Q&A]

The 2025 Northern Illinois Transit Authority Act describes the Chicago-region mandate as requiring staff who can “connect persons with relevant social, medical, and other social services and community resources” — language implying a social-services-oriented workforce profile rather than a security-oriented one. [Illinois Governor’s Office, December 16, 2025]

Training: LA Metro ambassadors receive comprehensive preparation “covering everything from mental health to de-escalation tactics before officially hitting the platform.” [NBC Los Angeles, March 6, 2023] Programs ensure staff can administer Narcan, perform CPR, recognize mental health crises, de-escalate conflicts, and connect people to appropriate services. [NBC Los Angeles, March 6, 2023; KQED, May 14, 2024]

Named Critics and Opposition

From the law-and-order direction: Critics argue that unarmed civilians without arrest authority “can’t actually stop anyone” and that “riders need real protection, not social workers in bright vests.” The framing appears: “law and order means consequences, more police visibility, more arrests, zero tolerance, that’s how you clean up transit.” [9]

BART Board of Directors member Debora Allen voted against making the BART program permanent (7-2 vote, October 2020), calling it a “toothless” effort “to dupe riders into believing BART is providing for their safety” and a “bait and switch.” [SFBay, October 24, 2020]

Keith Garcia, President of the BART Police Officers’ Association (BPOA), initially opposed the program when proposed to be staffed by nonprofits. After restructuring under BART PD, he dropped formal opposition but stated the initiative “should not be seen as a substitute for hiring new police officers” and would only increase the “perception of safety.” [Mercury News, January 9, 2020]

LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva wrote on social media (April 21, 2022): “We need Deputies on trains/busses, not ambassadors — arrests/citations, not a Metro Court.” [LA Daily News, July 2, 2022, Steve Scauzillo]

Gina Osborn, former Metro Chief Safety Officer (former FBI agent, hired 2022, fired March 2024), stated: “They are not security. They are there to help with wayfinding, answering questions,” and argued the budget “instead should have been used for more Metro security officers.” Osborn filed a $7 million retaliation lawsuit against Metro. [NBC Los Angeles; Long Beach Post, ~August 2024]

The Los Angeles Police Protective League engaged in opposition messaging around the program’s launch. [9]

The Sacramento fatal stabbing in June 2025, where a transit ambassador killed a 16-year-old following an altercation, gave critics a concrete incident. SacRT confirmed that ambassadors are not authorized to carry knives. [CBS Sacramento, June 2025]

From the LA Metro contractor failure direction: The hiring scandal at Strive Well-Being — the LA Metro contractor that hired an ambassador who had an open sexual assault case, was subsequently arrested in his Metro uniform for a second offense, and received a four-year prison sentence — generated criticism focused on contractor oversight, background check adequacy, and the risks of rapid program scaling. LAist reported that the contractor’s background check process failed to flag the pending charges. [LAist, Kavish Harjai, May 22, 2025: https://laist.com/news/transportation/transit-ambassador-la-metro-train-fernando-vinicio-chavez] This criticism did not call for ending the program; it called for in-house management accountability. [3]

From the progressive direction: Critics argue that ambassador programs are insufficient — a modest mitigation of a structural problem that requires bigger solutions. The argument is that homelessness, mental health crisis, and substance use on transit systems are symptoms of broader failures in housing, mental health care, and addiction treatment. This criticism has appeared in LA Metro debates, where expanded ambassador coverage to buses was sometimes coupled with advocacy for more fundamental changes in how the city addresses homelessness. [LA Times editorial, May 2024]

On the evidence gap in named opposition: The sources available do not identify specific named individuals — from police unions, elected officials, or advocacy organizations — who have publicly opposed transit ambassador programs by name in the way that some alternative public safety programs have attracted named public critics. The opposition framing documented above comes from categories of criticism programs have faced and rhetorical lines that appear in source material, not from documented statements by specific named opponents. [9]

Institutional criticism centers on measurement and accountability. The Transportation Research Board has an active research project (TCRP Project H-63) developing evaluation frameworks for ambassador programs, in part because no standard methodology yet exists. [TRB TCRP Project H-63: https://rip.trb.org/View/2464328]

Labor Organizing Among Transit Ambassadors

ATU Local 1756 — Failed unionization vote (June 2023). Approximately 75–100 ambassadors employed by Strive Well-Being (an LA Metro contractor) voted June 9–10, 2023, on whether to unionize. Result: 67-30 against. Key organizer Fabian Bolanos (LA Metro ambassador since October 2022) stated: “We deserve to be treated like other Metro employees, like the custodians, rail operators or security officers.” Strive Well-Being Director of Operations Sanjay Sangani emailed workers before the vote noting that “dues can be high and may contribute to international programs and political causes that not all members necessarily support.” Bolanos planned to file an NLRB appeal alleging employer interference. The 200 ambassadors employed by the second contractor, RMI International, were excluded from the vote. [LA Daily News, Steve Scauzillo, June 5 and 19, 2023]

Teamsters Local 911 — Legal challenge (May 2023). President Carlos Rubio filed a petition in LA Superior Court asking that Metro “restore all work performed by ambassadors to the union’s bargaining unit,” alleging Metro “unilaterally altered material terms and conditions of employment.” By October 2023, Rubio supported an in-house transition. The Teamsters CBA was approved in July 2025, covering 388 positions at $11.8 million in FY2026 budget. [MyNewsLA, May 7, 2023; Mass Transit Magazine]

Media and Editorial

The Los Angeles Times editorial board endorsed transit ambassador programs and called for expansion, writing that “riders deserve safer bus and rail service” and warning that “Metro is doomed without it.” [10]

Sacramento’s unanimous board vote on the $1 million expansion was reported as a cross-partisan decision. [Fox40, Noah Anderson, October 29, 2025: https://fox40.com/news/sacrt-approves-1m-funding-increase-to-enhance-passenger-safety/]