Skip to main content Skip to footer
← Back to Transit Ambassadors
Card 07

Do People Support This?

National Polling

A Safer Cities national poll found 75% of voters support “the creation of an unarmed transit security ambassador unit where they live.” That number holds above 70% across party affiliation, race, gender, age, and educational attainment. [1]

This is a public opinion finding and should not be treated as evidence that programs work. What it establishes is that, as a policy proposition, transit safety ambassadors command majority support before most voters have had any experience with an actual program.

The function-specific findings, by net importance (percentage rating “important” or “very important” minus percentage rating “not important”):

Responding to medical emergencies: +74 net (59% called it “very important”)
Helping people experiencing mental health crises: +70 net (53% “very important”)
Preventing drug use on transit: +69 net (53% “very important”)
Deterring harassment: +67 net (50% “very important”)
Assisting elderly and disabled riders: +63 net (48% “very important”)
Walking people to their cars: +62 net (45% “very important”)
Helping with directions: +51 net (37% “very important”)

[1]

Medical emergency response ranked highest, with 59% of voters calling it “very important” — not just “important.” [1] The full importance breakout for each function, per the Safer Cities / Data For Progress poll:

Medical emergency response: 87% important vs. 13% not important
Helping people experiencing mental health crises: 85% vs. 15%
Preventing drug use on transit: 84% vs. 15%
Deterring harassment: 83% vs. 16%
Assisting elderly and disabled riders: 81% vs. 18%
Walking people to their cars: 81% vs. 19%
Helping with directions: 75% vs. 24%

[1] The 334 lives saved by LA Metro ambassadors as of July 2025, per Metro’s official board records, represents the documented outcome that corresponds to this top-ranked function. [LA Metro board press release, July 2025]

A separate finding: 77% of voters agreed that “trained safety ambassadors consistently and competently perform the same role for less cost which allows the city to have more safety ambassadors, and therefore more eyes on the street, for the same budget.” [1]

Regional Polling

A Safer Cities poll of Harris County, Texas residents found 81% say transit ambassador units would be “effective” at “making Harris County safer.” [2]

Rider Experience

A Safer Cities rider survey found 63% of LA Metro riders who had encountered ambassadors on the system reported feeling safer when they see them. A December 2025 UCLA evaluation found “safety perceptions increased over the period ambassadors were deployed.” [UCLA ITS, December 2025: https://www.its.ucla.edu/publication/la-metro-transit-ambassador-shows-promise/]

LA Metro’s 2023 customer survey found demographic breakouts among riders who had seen ambassadors: 66% of women felt safer; 66% of those earning under $25,000 per year; 68% of Hispanic/Latino riders; 68% of those under 18; 70% of Asian/Pacific Islander riders. 61% said they want more ambassadors; 54% said ambassador presence makes them want to ride Metro more often. [LA Metro 2023 Customer Survey, cited in RTA Chicago blog, March 27, 2025: https://www.rtachicago.org/blog/2025/03/27/what-chicago-can-learn-from-transit-ambassador-programs-around-the-country]

Community groups in Los Angeles have called for a four-to-five-fold increase in the program budget to expand to bus routes. [4]

Bay Area Rapid Transit’s (BART) frontline crisis intervention specialists stated: “we are definitely needed — it’s just that there needs to be 100 of us, not just 20.” [5]

A pilot at BART’s Embarcadero and Montgomery stations in San Francisco found 82% of surveyed riders felt safer with ambassadors present, per the San Francisco Standard’s reporting on the program-reported results. A critical caveat applies: the pilot period coincided with a citywide 25.8% overall crime decrease, meaning the finding cannot be attributed exclusively to ambassador presence. [The San Francisco Standard, Jillian D’Onfro, November 13, 2025]

A Bay Area Council / EMC Research poll (May 2023) of 1,000 residents in the BART service area found 79% feel more comfortable riding BART with uniformed police or security present, and 73% say BART should prioritize adding uniformed police — a finding that reflects simultaneous demand for increased police presence alongside documented support for ambassador programs. Only 17% of frequent BART riders reported feeling safe at the time of that poll. [Bay Area Council, May 2023: https://www.bayareacouncil.org/press-releases/new-poll-overwhelming-support-for-more-police-on-bart-greater-focus-on-cleanliness-and-stronger-enforcement-of-rules/]

Named Constituencies the Polling Identifies

The Safer Cities / Data For Progress poll identifies specific rider groups as primary beneficiaries:

Night-shift workers. Night-shift workers travel during off-peak hours when platforms are least populated. The walking escort function ranks +62 net importance, with 81% rating it “important” or “very important.” [1]

Elderly and disabled riders. Helping elderly and disabled riders ranks +63 net importance, with 81% rating it “important” or “very important” and 48% calling it “very important.” [1]

Women traveling alone. The ability to request a walking escort creates an environment where riders traveling alone feel safer during off-peak hours. 81% of voters support the walking escort function. [1]

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.” [KQED, May 14, 2024] Rather than arrest or removal, ambassadors connect individuals to “social services and mental health nonprofits sprinkled throughout BART’s five-county service area.” [KQED, May 14, 2024]

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

Transit Agency Leadership

LA Metro Supervisor Holly Mitchell: “Every one of my constituents has a different perception of what it takes for them to feel safe in a public space. We thought that by having an extra set of eyes in the system, unarmed and well trained, we can improve people’s perceptions of public safety without the unnecessary risks of over policing or enabling situations to escalate to violence.” [6]

Minneapolis Metro Transit General Manager Lesley Kandaras described ambassadors as “an opportunity to increase official presence on our system, to add more eyes and ears.” [9]

BART Deputy Chief of Police Ja’Son Scott publicly championed the crisis intervention specialist program, explaining: “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 handle these situations. [7]

D.C. Metro General Manager Randy Clarke: ambassadors “provide great service and are another additive layer to make sure we have more visibility for safety, security and more thinking about the customer in everything we do.” [8]

Sacramento Regional Transit’s board voted unanimously to expand its ambassador program with a $1 million budget increase. Board member Roger Dickinson described the expansion as “calibrated to have the right level of response for the particular incident.” [Fox40, Noah Anderson, October 29, 2025: https://fox40.com/news/sacrt-approves-1m-funding-increase-to-enhance-passenger-safety/]

LA Metro’s board voted the program permanent after finding it “improved public safety and helped increase ridership.” [LA Metro board press release, July 2025]

Editorial and Media

The Los Angeles Times editorial board endorsed the transit ambassador model and called for expansion, writing that “riders deserve safer bus and rail service” and warning that “Metro is doomed without it.” The board called specifically for expanding “unarmed staff who can patrol the buses and trains every day and develop relationships with operators and commuters.” [10]

Fox News Los Angeles, KQED, NBC News Los Angeles, and The San Francisco Standard have all covered transit ambassador programs with reporting documenting specific outcomes. [6, 7, NBC News Los Angeles; The San Francisco Standard]

What the UCLA Evaluation Found on Perception

UCLA’s Institute of Transportation Studies evaluation (December 2025) found that riders reported “safety perceptions increased over the period ambassadors were deployed” and characterized the program as providing “more eyes on the system and offer a highly visible presence to riders.” [UCLA ITS, December 2025: https://www.its.ucla.edu/publication/la-metro-transit-ambassador-shows-promise/]

Additional Rider Surveys

A Minneapolis Metro Transit rider survey (June–July 2023, 2,000 respondents) found 61% prefer TRIP agents to address safety and fare enforcement, compared to 39% preferring navigation help. [MinnPost, September 2023, Peter Callaghan: https://www.minnpost.com/metro/2023/09/survey-of-metro-transit-riders-shows-they-want-ambassadors-to-focus-on-safety-fare-enforcement/]

A YouGov national poll (January 2023, n=6,776 U.S. adults) found 48% of U.S. adults see public transportation as “very safe” or “somewhat safe.” Among monthly-or-more transit users, that figure rises to 78%. [YouGov: https://today.yougov.com/travel/articles/45079-how-safe-do-us-adults-believe-public-transportatio]

Gender and Safety Research

Research on transit safety and gender provides context for the walking escort function, which ranks +62 net importance in the Safer Cities / Data For Progress national poll with 81% finding it important.

An NYU Rudin Center analysis (2018) found 75% of women (versus 47% of men) reported being subject to harassment or theft on NYC public transportation (n=547 respondents). [Vital City: https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/riding-while-female-a-safer-subway-for-women-too]

A 2025 study of San Francisco Muni riders (n=1,613) published in Transportation Research Record found 67% reported experiencing harassment in the last six months; 68% feel safe during daytime but only 32% feel safe at nighttime. Statistically significant safety gaps appeared between women and men, gender minorities and cisgender riders, transit-dependent and private-vehicle-access riders, and white and non-white riders. [Cowan & Liu, “Rethinking Transit Safety,” Transportation Research Record, 2025: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03611981241255603]

A Transit App / Mobilizing Justice multi-city survey of 26,000+ transit riders found males 8–10% more likely to feel safe than females; non-binary and non-conforming respondents reported just over 54% feeling safe — the lowest group surveyed. [Mobilizing Justice, mobilizingjustice.ca]

Cleveland GCRTA’s Wave 10 rider survey (June 2024, approximately 1,341 cumulative responses across 10 waves) showed 73% customer satisfaction and a Net Promoter Score of 70 — a 19-point increase over earlier measurements — during the period the ambassador program has been operational. [Mass Transit Magazine, November 2024: https://www.masstransitmag.com/safety-security/article/55243079/greater-cleveland-regional-transit-authority-rta-gcrta-transit-ambassador-program-update]

Where Support Has Limits

Minneapolis’s Transit Rider Investment Program faced friction over including fare checking as an ambassador duty. Metro Transit acknowledged that stepped-up fare enforcement through TRIP “may have contributed” to a 14% light rail ridership decline in 2025. [Axios Twin Cities, March 11, 2026: https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2026/03/11/metro-transit-ridership-decline-2025]

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 and stronger screening. [CBS Sacramento, June 2025: https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/rancho-cordova-alleged-sacrt-employee-stabbing/]

Ambassador programs also compete with other transit budget priorities. The LA Metro board, despite making the program permanent, has not yet committed the four-to-five-fold budget increase that community groups have called for to extend coverage to buses. [LA Metro board materials; LA Times editorial, May 2024]

The Minneapolis data shows the limits of polling support: despite deploying approximately 92 agents, only 41% of light rail riders reported feeling safe on trains as of 2025. [Axios Twin Cities, March 11, 2026]

  1. Sources ↩

  2. Safer Cities national poll — 75% support, cross-demographic consistency, function-specific importance ratings, 77% cost-effectiveness agreement ↩

  3. Safer Cities Harris County poll — 81% effectiveness rating among Harris County residents ↩

  4. Safer Cities rider survey (2023) — 63% of LA Metro riders who had seen ambassadors feel safer ↩

  5. Los Angeles Times editorial board (May 6, 2024) — four-to-five-fold increase advocacy, bus coverage gap: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-05-06/editorial-la-metro-is-doomed-if-it-cant-keep-bus-and-train-riders-safe ↩

  6. KQED (Matthew Green, May 14, 2024) — BART crisis intervention specialist "needs to be 100 of us" quote: https://www.kqed.org/news/11985965/we-approach-in-peace-are-barts-outreach-efforts-to-help-people-in-crisis-working ↩

  7. Fox News Los Angeles (Hal Eisner, March 6, 2023) — LA Supervisor Holly Mitchell quote: https://www.foxla.com/news/metro-ambassador-program-hopes-to-provide-safety-support-to-riders ↩

  8. KQED (Matthew Green, May 14, 2024) — BART Deputy Chief Ja'Son Scott: https://www.kqed.org/news/11985965/we-approach-in-peace-are-barts-outreach-efforts-to-help-people-in-crisis-working ↩

  9. WMATA Metro Ambassadors program page — General Manager Randy Clarke: https://www.wmata.com/service/Metro-Ambassadors.cfm ↩

  10. Metro Transit Minneapolis — General Manager Lesley Kandaras endorsement ↩

  11. Los Angeles Times editorial board (May 6, 2024): https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-05-06/editorial-la-metro-is-doomed-if-it-cant-keep-bus-and-train-riders-safe ↩

  12. The San Francisco Standard (Jillian D'Onfro, November 13, 2025) — 82% rider safer feeling, pilot results: https://sfstandard.com/2025/11/13/downtown-sf-bart-station-ambassadors-pilot-extension/ ↩

  13. UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies (December 2025): https://www.its.ucla.edu/publication/la-metro-transit-ambassador-shows-promise/

    #8. Who Are the Key Stakeholders?

    Transit Agency Leadership and Boards ↩

  14. 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] ↩

  15. 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] ↩

  16. 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] ↩

  17. Transit Police and Law Enforcement Partners ↩

  18. 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] ↩

  19. 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] ↩

  20. 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/] ↩

  21. Transit Operators and Frontline Workers ↩

  22. 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] ↩

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

  24. Riders as Constituency ↩

  25. 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] ↩

  26. 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] ↩

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

  28. 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] ↩

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

  30. 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] ↩

  31. 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] ↩

  32. Social Service Providers and Nonprofit Partners ↩

  33. 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] ↩

  34. 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] ↩

  35. 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. ↩

  36. Workforce Backgrounds ↩

  37. 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] ↩

  38. 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] ↩

  39. 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] ↩

  40. Named Critics and Opposition ↩

  41. 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] ↩

  42. 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] ↩

  43. 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] ↩

  44. 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] ↩

  45. 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] ↩

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

  47. 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] ↩

  48. 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] ↩

  49. 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] ↩

  50. 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] ↩

  51. 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] ↩

  52. Labor Organizing Among Transit Ambassadors ↩

  53. 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] ↩

  54. 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] ↩

  55. Media and Editorial ↩

  56. 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] ↩

  57. 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/] ↩

  58. Footnotes (13) ↩

  59. Sources ↩

  60. KQED (Matthew Green, May 14, 2024) — BART Deputy Chief Ja'Son Scott as law enforcement champion: https://www.kqed.org/news/11985965/we-approach-in-peace-are-barts-outreach-efforts-to-help-people-in-crisis-working ↩

  61. Fox News Los Angeles (Hal Eisner, March 6, 2023) — LA Supervisor Holly Mitchell: https://www.foxla.com/news/metro-ambassador-program-hopes-to-provide-safety-support-to-riders ↩

  62. LA Metro board press release (metro.net, July 2025) — permanent status, improved safety and ridership finding: https://www.metro.net/about/metro-board-approves-collective-bargaining-agreement-to-create-in-house-transit-ambassador-department-expand-it-to-more-bus-and-train-lines/ ↩

  63. Fox40 (Noah Anderson, October 29, 2025) — Sacramento board member Roger Dickinson, $1M expansion rationale: https://fox40.com/news/sacrt-approves-1m-funding-increase-to-enhance-passenger-safety/ ↩

  64. Metro Transit Minneapolis — General Manager Lesley Kandaras ↩

  65. WMATA Metro Ambassadors program page — General Manager Randy Clarke: https://www.wmata.com/service/Metro-Ambassadors.cfm ↩

  66. ThurstonTalk (Kristina Lotz, November 7, 2025) — Thurston County operator support, frontline ambassador role: https://www.thurstontalk.com/2025/11/07/transit-ambassador-program-at-intercity-transit-ensures-you-have-a-great-ride/ ↩

  67. Safer Cities national poll — elderly/disabled rider importance, night-shift walking escort importance [Safer Cities proprietary research, no external URL] ↩

  68. Safer Cities — "soft on crime" criticism framing, "can't stop anyone" opposition language, Sheriff Villanueva opposition ↩

  69. Los Angeles Times editorial board (May 6, 2024): https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-05-06/editorial-la-metro-is-doomed-if-it-cant-keep-bus-and-train-riders-safe ↩

  70. LAist (Kavish Harjai, May 22, 2025) — LA Metro contractor hiring failure: https://laist.com/news/transportation/transit-ambassador-la-metro-train-fernando-vinicio-chavez ↩

  71. CBS Sacramento (June 2025) — Sacramento fatal stabbing: https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/rancho-cordova-alleged-sacrt-employee-stabbing/ ↩

  72. Transportation Research Board (TCRP Project H-63) — ambassador evaluation framework research: https://rip.trb.org/View/2464328

    #9. What are the Risks?

    Three documented incidents and several structural patterns define the known risk profile for transit safety ambassador programs. ↩

  73. Structural Risk 1: Chronic Understaffing and Coverage Gaps ↩

  74. Bay Area Rapid Transit’s (BART) frontline crisis intervention specialists stated: the five-county system needs 100 specialists, not the 20 currently deployed — a five-fold gap between current deployment and assessed need. [1] ↩

  75. For most of LA Metro’s ambassador program history, ambassadors were concentrated primarily on six rail lines while buses carried 80% of Metro riders. Community groups called for a four-to-five-fold increase specifically to close the bus coverage gap. The July 2025 in-house transition and Teamsters collective bargaining agreement included doubling bus deployment from 10% to 20% of coverage. [2] ↩

  76. Structural Risk 2: Funding Fragility ↩

  77. LA Metro’s board voted to make the ambassador program permanent in 2023, citing safety and ridership improvements. [2] Programs still operating in pilot status or on grant funding face a more precarious position: their continued existence requires a recurring political win rather than reversal of an established commitment. [2] ↩

  78. There is no Medicaid reimbursement pathway for transit ambassador programs (unlike some mobile crisis team functions), and no dedicated federal transit ambassador funding stream existed as of early 2026. ↩

  79. Without stable, long-term funding, programs remain vulnerable to budget cuts or elimination when political leadership changes. The reliance on pilot programs and demonstration projects rather than permanent funding creates uncertainty for workers and limits ability to build institutional capacity. The RIDER Safety Act, introduced by Rep. Lateefah Simon in January 2026, would create a federal grant program for this purpose — but had not been enacted as of early 2026. [Oaklandside, February 3, 2026] ↩

  80. Structural Risk 3: Fare Enforcement and Role Contamination ↩

  81. Minneapolis’s Transit Rider Investment Program (TRIP) includes fare checking among ambassador duties. [4] Despite deploying approximately 92 TRIP agents, only 41% of light rail riders reported feeling safe on trains as of 2025. Light rail ridership declined 14% in 2025, and Metro Transit acknowledged that stepped-up fare enforcement through TRIP “may have contributed” to that drop. [3] ↩

  82. Structural Risk 4: Leadership Dependency ↩

  83. BART’s Crisis Intervention Specialists operate closely with Deputy Chief of Police Ja’Son Scott, who championed the program. [5] 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.” [5] ↩

  84. Measurement Limitation: The Prevention Problem ↩

  85. The rest of the program’s benefit beyond directly counted life-saving outcomes is significantly harder to measure — a limitation documented in the December 2025 UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies evaluation, which called for “stronger data collection systems” and “more comprehensive outcome tracking.” [UCLA ITS, December 2025: https://www.its.ucla.edu/publication/la-metro-transit-ambassador-shows-promise/] ↩

  86. The broad benefits of visible deterrence (the sentinel effect) have not been independently measured and attributed to transit ambassador programs specifically at any scale. [UCLA ITS, December 2025] ↩

  87. The San Francisco BART pilot data — a 53% reduction in safety-related 911 calls and a 67% reduction in violent incident calls at two stations over a five-month pilot period — represents the closest available evidence on what ambassadors prevent. That pilot coincided with a citywide 25.8% overall crime decrease, which means the reductions cannot be attributed exclusively to ambassador presence. [6] ↩

  88. 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. [9] ↩

  89. While lives saved through Narcan are quantifiable, the crimes prevented through visible presence, the escalations avoided through de-escalation, and the problems solved through service connection are harder to document. This measurement challenge makes it difficult to justify funding increases or defend against budget cuts, particularly when competing with traditional police who can produce arrest statistics. ↩

  90. LA Metro is the only program with publicly documented service connection outcome data: Mass Transit Magazine reported 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. [Mass Transit Magazine, 2024] These figures are program-reported and have not been independently verified. ↩

  91. Documented Incident 1: The Sacramento Fatal Stabbing ↩

  92. On June 20, 2025, a Sacramento Regional Transit (SacRT) ambassador fatally stabbed 16-year-old Michael Ray Berry at Mills Station in Rancho Cordova following a reported altercation with two teenagers who attacked him. The ambassador was released without arrest pending investigation, and SacRT stated he had acted in self-defense. SacRT confirmed that ambassadors are not authorized to carry knives. [7] The Sacramento County District Attorney’s office declined to file charges in approximately November 2025, citing “insufficient evidence to file charges and sustain a conviction under the guilt beyond a reasonable doubt standard.” [CBS Sacramento; ABC10; Fox40, November 2025] ↩

  93. Documented Incident 1b: Sound Transit Ambassador Assault (September 2024) ↩

  94. Andre Karlow, 39, punched Sound Transit Fare Ambassador Shauntey Young in the face in an unprovoked attack after she asked for proof of fare, using a slur against her. Young stated she has “a target on my back” and is “afraid to do my job as a fare ambassador.” A jury convicted Karlow of fourth-degree assault on November 26, 2025; he was sentenced to 18 months, concurrent with a 7-year sentence for a separate hate crime. [KOMO News; KUOW, April 2025] ↩

  95. Documented Incident 2: The LA Metro Contractor Hiring Failure ↩

  96. While the LA Metro ambassador program was operating under its original contractor, Strive Well-Being, the program hired Fernando Vinicio Chavez as an ambassador despite an open sexual assault case pending against him at the time of hire. Chavez was subsequently arrested while wearing his LA Metro ambassador uniform for attempting another sexual assault. He received a four-year prison sentence. [8] ↩

  97. LAist, which broke the story, reported that the contractor’s background check process failed to flag the pending charges. [8] The incident was among the documented problems — below-living-wage pay, high turnover, lack of break facilities, and arbitrary assignments — that drove LA Metro’s July 2025 decision to bring the program in-house under Teamsters management with direct agency accountability for hiring. [2] ↩

  98. Since 2022, eight people who worked as transit ambassadors, street team members, and community intervention specialists at LA Metro have been arrested. [LAist, May 2025] California’s Fair Chance Act bars employers from asking about criminal history before a conditional job offer but has an exemption for arrests where the applicant is out on bail — an exemption Strive Well-Being did not invoke in Chavez’s case. After the incident, background checks were expanded from a 5-county to a 10-county and multi-state sex offender registry. [LAist, May 2025] ↩

  99. Documented Pattern: Ambassador Personal Safety Risk ↩

  100. Ambassadors work in transit environments that include people in mental health crisis, people who are intoxicated, and occasional situations with genuine violence risk — without weapons, without arrest authority, and often without police immediately available. The Transportation Research Board has an active research project developing evaluation frameworks for ambassador programs, in part because no standard methodology yet exists for measuring or managing this risk systematically across programs. [9] ↩

  101. The nature of the work — intervening in conflicts, approaching people in crisis, administering medical aid — inherently involves risk. Programs must balance ambassador safety with intervention effectiveness, potentially limiting response to certain situations. ↩

  102. Funding Vulnerability in Crisis ↩

  103. SEPTA’s $213 million budget deficit forced the elimination of 32 bus routes starting August 24, 2025, with 45% total service cuts planned. Ambassadors were deployed at hubs specifically to help riders navigate the cuts. A judge ordered a temporary injunction stopping further cuts on September 4, 2025; SEPTA restored full service September 14 using redirected capital funds. The crisis placed SEPTA’s SCOPE ambassador and outreach model at risk, demonstrating that ambassador programs in systems with severe budget crises are exposed even when the programs themselves are working. [PHL17, August 2025; Billy Penn, August 24, 2025] ↩

  104. The Equity and Racial Disparity Risk in Fare Enforcement Functions ↩

  105. When ambassador programs include fare enforcement functions, documented racial disparities in predecessor enforcement systems are a risk factor. Sound Transit’s fare enforcement program (before it transitioned to fare ambassadors) issued nearly 38,000 citations between 2009–2019. A King County Equity and Social Justice analysis found Black passengers received 46.7% of citations and 56.9% of theft charges despite comprising approximately 9% of riders. These disparities drove the switch to the fare ambassador model. [The Urbanist, January 18, 2022] ↩

  106. The Center for Policing Equity’s 2025 report on BART fare enforcement found that enforcement-specific approaches “do not appear connected to any measurable reduction in reported crimes,” and recommended expanding the Transit Ambassador and Crisis Intervention Team program. Only 6–12% of BART proof-of-payment citations were actually paid. The report recommended establishing the CIT program as a separate entity from BART police. [Center for Policing Equity, 2025: https://policingequity.org/cpe-publishes-report-on-improving-bart-fare-enforcement-operations/; Axios San Francisco, May 28, 2025] ↩

  107. The Sacramento stabbing and the Minneapolis ridership decline are evidence that significant harm can occur without a program shutting down. Minneapolis Metro Transit General Manager Lesley Kandaras stated: “We don’t have hard data to prove that that’s the cause” of the ridership decline — acknowledging the measurement problem that underlies many ambassador program risk assessments. [Axios Twin Cities, March 11, 2026] ↩

  108. The Equity Gap in Coverage ↩

  109. In many transit systems, bus ridership skews lower-income relative to rail ridership — a pattern documented in Federal Transit Administration ridership surveys and transit agency demographic analyses. [FTA ridership surveys] Programs concentrated on rail stations and trains provide the most developed safety infrastructure to riders who may have more alternatives, while the most transit-dependent riders — on buses — receive the least. ↩

  110. LA Metro community groups’ call for a four-to-five-fold increase specifically to expand to buses reflects this dynamic. [LA Times editorial, May 2024] ↩

  111. Night-shift workers and women traveling alone are specific constituencies who depend on off-peak coverage — precisely the coverage gap that most programs have not closed. The walking escort function ranks +62 net importance in Safer Cities polling, with 81% calling it “important” or “very important,” but off-peak ambassador deployment is inconsistent across all documented programs. [Safer Cities national poll; Data For Progress methodology] ↩

  112. Footnotes (10) ↩

  113. Sources ↩

  114. KQED (Matthew Green, May 14, 2024) — BART specialist understaffing, "needs to be 100 of us, not just 20": https://www.kqed.org/news/11985965/we-approach-in-peace-are-barts-outreach-efforts-to-help-people-in-crisis-working ↩

  115. LA Metro board press release (metro.net, July 2025) — in-house Teamsters transition, bus deployment doubled to 20%, permanent status: https://www.metro.net/about/metro-board-approves-collective-bargaining-agreement-to-create-in-house-transit-ambassador-department-expand-it-to-more-bus-and-train-lines/ ↩

  116. Axios Twin Cities (March 11, 2026): https://www.axios.com/local/twin-cities/2026/03/11/metro-transit-ridership-decline-2025; Star Tribune: https://www.startribune.com/metro-transit-light-rail-safety/601444850 — TRIP: 41% riders feel safe on trains, 14% ridership decline, fare enforcement contribution ↩

  117. Governing (Jared Brey, December 14, 2023) — Minneapolis TRIP design, fare enforcement function: https://www.governing.com/transportation/minnesotas-top-transit-agency-tries-new-approaches-to-public-safety ↩

  118. KQED (Matthew Green, May 14, 2024) — BART Deputy Chief Ja'Son Scott, police-adjacent structure: https://www.kqed.org/news/11985965/we-approach-in-peace-are-barts-outreach-efforts-to-help-people-in-crisis-working ↩

  119. The San Francisco Standard (Jillian D'Onfro, November 13, 2025) — 53%/67% 911 call data, five-month pilot, two stations, citywide 25.8% crime decrease caveat: https://sfstandard.com/2025/11/13/downtown-sf-bart-station-ambassadors-pilot-extension/ ↩

  120. CBS Sacramento (June 19-24, 2025) — June 2025 fatal stabbing at Mills Station: https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/rancho-cordova-alleged-sacrt-employee-stabbing/ ↩

  121. LAist (Kavish Harjai, May 22, 2025) — LA Metro contractor Strive Well-Being, Fernando Vinicio Chavez: https://laist.com/news/transportation/transit-ambassador-la-metro-train-fernando-vinicio-chavez ↩

  122. Transportation Research Board (TCRP Project H-63) — active research project on ambassador program evaluation frameworks: https://rip.trb.org/View/2464328 ↩

  123. FTA ridership surveys — bus/rail demographic patterns [Federal Transit Administration; see FTA National Transit Database] ↩

©2026 Safer Cities
Privacy Policy