How TriMet is increasing security and enforcement in Portland metro

Starting in September, HB 4002 will go into effect and will recriminalize possession of small amounts of controlled substances. Portland’s public transportation agency TriMet is hopeful this could bring changes to the system that has faced a number of challenges in recent years, including a historic driver shortage, increased assaults on operators and more. Since 2022, TriMet has been stepping up its enforcement efforts, and in July of this year, it began increasing enforcement of fares and other rules. Andrew Wilson is the agency’s chief safety officer and its executive director of safety and security. He joins us to share more.

Note: This transcript was computer generated and edited by a volunteer.

Geoff Norcross: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Geoff Norcross. The decision by Oregon lawmakers to recriminalize possession of illegal drugs could have ripple effects across life in Oregon. Beginning September 1, it will again be a misdemeanor to have and use illegal drugs in public, and that includes public buses and trains in the Portland Metro. TriMet, the agency that runs them, is planning to enforce Oregon’s drug laws, citing people who run afoul of them.

We’re going to talk about that and other developments happening at TriMet with Andrew Wilson. He is the agency’s chief safety officer and he joins us in our studio. Andrew, welcome to Think Out Loud.

Andrew Wilson: Yeah, thanks. It’s great to be here with you, Geoff, and talk about some of the improvements we’re making at TriMet.

Norcross: Good. We’ll talk about drug decriminalization first, though. It took effect after voters approved Measure 110 in 2020. Did that lead to more drug possession and more drug use on your buses and trains?

Wilson: Yeah, I think, in large part, a lot of what’s been happening, from a societal impact perspective out in Portland, really does spill off into a very open public transit system. And that’s been one of the reasons why we’ve been so focused on increasing our safety and security presence. We did see a rise in drug use on the system and on platforms just like the city of Portland did in our region. This is one of the reasons why we’ve really focused on increasing the amount of safety and security personnel, and we’ve seen some great reductions over that in the last couple of years of use on the system.

As you might be aware, we’ve more than doubled the amount of safety and security personnel that we’ve had on the system since 2022. Our budget for safety and security is four times what it was several years ago. And so we’re really increasing the amount of personnel that we have out there to limit the type of behavior, things like drug use on the system and on vehicles in particular. But we’re really excited about HB 4002 coming into play. That’s an additional tool that we can work with our law enforcement partners to continue those decreases. And we’ve made some significant progress.

As you might be aware, we’ve actually been down at TriMet testifying in support of HB 4002, as well as Senate Bill 1553, which actually goes into place on January 1 of 2025. So we’re prepping for that as well. But yeah, we are working with our law enforcement partners to sustain the reductions that we’ve seen over the last several years and these additional tools will help us do that. We do hope that our riders and your members are seeing some really good additional presence out on the system and those are significant investments because we’ve been hearing from folks for several years that they want to see more presence out there. So we’re really focused on that right now.

Norcross: Just from my standpoint, I’ve seen more officers on the MAX in the last year than I have in the last 15.

Wilson: Yeah. That’s all by design and we’re hearing what people are asking for, which is an additional presence out there. We’re also really kicking up our code enforcement. A lot of the complaints that we receive are related to things like people sleeping on multiple seats or blocking our preferred seating, those types of things. That is where we’re really focused with our code enforcement teams who are unarmed TriMet personnel teams that are out there doing code enforcement, which does include fare enforcement as well. And we’ve really made some investments in that because we want to ensure that folks are seeing us out there.

Our teams out there, we have more than 400 people working in the safety security division here, now at TriMet, again, part of those large increases. So it’s really important that people see us, that we’re visible, that we are enforcing codes, that we’re starting to agree as a community what will and will not be tolerated. Obviously, drug use on the system, whether it’s on a platform or on a bus, is not going to be tolerated. We can’t accept that. And when we’re working with our law enforcement partners, as well as the legislature, who’s given us some support to increase our activity and making sure that doesn’t happen.

Norcross: You will have the tools to cite people if they’re engaging in that kind of activity on the buses, on the trains or on the platforms. But from a law enforcement standpoint, diversion is not off the table. Are your officers able to help move people who are experiencing addiction into treatment and not through the criminal justice system?

Wilson: We get to work with our Transit Police Department which is run by the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Department, and we have some great partnerships with them. We are sensitive to their ability to work in the conditions that the legislature has left for them with HB 4002 and they’re doing some really good work in that space. Our security teams are working alongside them as well. We have really seen the societal impacts of houselessness, mental health, as well as drug use and addiction really impact our system, just similarly to what we’ve seen outside in the community. And this is part of the reason why we have, kind of what we call a multi-layered approach to safety and security at TriMet. We work with our transit police partners who do enforce the law and they will be using HP 4002, as well as Senate Bill 1553, which actually has a stiffer penalty for people using on vehicles – that actually carries a Class A misdemeanor. So that’s a little bit more stiff penalty for all the reasons why it should be.

But why I bring that up is we work with our law enforcement partners, but we also have safety and security teams that do things like code enforcement, as well as our safety response team. You might have seen them out there on the system. Those folks actually carry Narcan, water bottles, socks, they’re really steeped in all of the good context for outreach services in our area, so they can make those connections for people suffering an addiction. They are actually working alongside the transit police as well to increase the safety outcomes on the system.

Norcross: We can actually go back further than Measure 110. Can you give us a sense of how security has changed since the pandemic?

Wilson: Yeah. We’ve seen a kind of an uptick in what we call Part B crime. So things related to, mostly things like code violations. So people being disruptive, people being threatening, not paying fare, sleeping on multiple seats, blocking the ADA seating that we have provided for some of the most vulnerable in our communities. Those types of disruptive behaviors is what we’re really trying to get after. And those really represent the most complaints that we have on the system as well.

The teams that we have out there right now who are unarmed … who came out of our reimagined public safety project that we spent a long time with the community, really listening to what the community wanted from a public safety standpoint on the system. We built those teams to address those specific needs, which are more related to just a lack of decorum on the system. I think you’re seeing this trend across the country and this is a national trend that you can read in The New York Times about what the MTA is suffering and other large transit providers as well. And this is why it’s so important to have a presence out there and to remind people of code violations. But that uptick did start during the pandemic and it continued.

I’ll tell you, riders have been coming back. Increased ridership on our system really does help maintain a better system as well and does have a direct impact on safety and security outcomes. So we’ve been really excited to watch that trend of increasing ridership over the last several years. And also decreasing calls for emergency service, significant decreases in operator assault and assaults on our wonderful employees. So we’ve been getting some really good trends and I think that’s also tracking with the increasing ridership as well.

Norcross: You mentioned that these teams are not armed and neither are your operators. What are you doing to ensure their safety out there?

Wilson: Well, one of the things that you’ll see, that from an advancement perspective on buses, is you’ll notice that we have safety monitors out there, which actually show the interior of the buses with our surveillance system. That’s on every single one of our buses now, so it’s kind of like you’re on Candid Camera, similar to what you’re experiencing if you go to Fred Meyer or Kroger right now and you are in the checkout lane, you actually see yourself on camera. Those are on every single one of our buses now and that’s a key investment that we made since the pandemic.

We’ve also extended our operator shields so that people can’t, in terrible cases, throw things at our operators or spit at our operators. We’ve really tried to limit that with the operator shields. You’ll notice that on the bus.

Norcross: It’s like a little clear cage that the operator sits in.

Wilson: Yeah. And we developed that during the pandemic, and really have advanced that forward. It’s really a direct mitigation against some of the operator assaults. And it’s part of the reason why we’ve seen that number come down so drastically.

So we’ve been making those investments from an infrastructure standpoint, but also, the largest part of it is just all the personnel that we’re putting out there on the system and providing just a safer experience, not only for riders, but for our employees as well.

Norcross: You mentioned this earlier, but earlier this summer, the agency said it was going to step up fare enforcement as well. Why is that necessary?

Wilson: Well, it is necessary to do all code enforcement on this system and that does include fare as well. TriMet is a paid fare system. And we need those revenue funds to be able to continue to operate. But it’s also a way for us to engage with folks and make sure that people are following codes on our system. So we have developed an unarmed team that does that work; it’s not done by law enforcement anymore. When somebody is caught in a fare situation where they weren’t paying fare, we do give lots of education related to our reduced fare programs in case that was the issue. A lot of education surrounds that process, but we hear clearly from our riders as well that they want to see fare enforcement out there. They want to see people paying for the system that we get to use, which is a fabulous system. And if they’re paying, others should as well.

So, like I said, we do offer education services from a standpoint of reduced fare. And we spend a lot of time educating and doing connections to make sure people can pay their way on TriMet. But at the end of the day, codes do need to be enforced. What I say is, when we do fare enforcement missions, we’re also checking for different code violations as well – things like people blocking our preferred seating. We make sure on every single one of our vehicles that they have access to that, because those are our most vulnerable in our community and we need to make sure we’re serving them appropriately. Having vehicles that are blocked with large can bags or carts that are outside of the size restrictions, those impact our ability to provide safe and reliable service for everybody, particularly our most vulnerable. So it’s important that we do enforce our codes.

Norcross: So when your teams encounter someone who has run afoul of any of these codes, whether it’s not paying a fare, blocking entrances, sitting across seats or whatever, what do they actually do?

Wilson: Well, there is a warning process and a kind of an escalation process which eventually leads to a citation. And they issue citations. They can also issue exclusions when citations are not being effective on the system. In the odd case that we have somebody who is not being responsive and is not responding to our unarmed team, that law enforcement can be called. And in which case, a trespass violation can be pursued.

But we do try to keep those interactions limited, because a lot of times what this is about is, this is just about holding people accountable to the codes. And our kind of social contract that we all agree to when we ride a safe transit system. And so we need to make sure that we’re holding people accountable and that they’re using the system the way it was intended, so that we can provide safe and reliable service for everybody

Norcross: With more of this personnel on the trains and the buses, are you also giving out more citations? What are the trends here?

Wilson: As we do more code enforcement work and we increase personnel, we have seen more citations. We’ve also seen increases in warnings as well. But I would say that, as we kind of go down those lines, we don’t want to issue a citation to anybody at TriMet. We want them to pay their fare, we want them to have good connectivity to our system. We want to try to keep it accessible. But it is important for us to do this work for all the reasons I mentioned before, just to make sure that we are providing safe, clean and reliable service, which is really what we’ve promised to this community.

And I will say, Geoff, one of the key issues that we focused on with HB 4002 and Senate Bill 1553 is really trying to ensure that some of these really difficult societal impacts that have been happening in the Portland area are not coming onto the system, so much so that our system becomes a place where you’re not getting a good customer experience as a rider. It’s very important that TriMet is successful through this region for a variety of reasons – environmental impacts, the reduction of congestion on our freeways – but also to serve the most vulnerable in our community, which we actually do serve here at TriMet. And we want to make sure that we have a system that is safe for them, that they can use this the way it was intended. And so it’s very important that we continue to enforce code and work with our partners.

But I will say, out of Reimagine, we’ve built some very, very successful teams and we’re seeing some great reductions in calls for emergency service, calls for non-emergency service, as well as just reductions in illicit drug use. We track quite a few of these things, and we have almost a 40% reduction in operator assault and employee assault as well. So when you think about kind of those investments that we’ve made in these unarmed teams out of Reimagine, we’re really seeing some very good successes over the last three years. And also, we’re seeing some successes with our riders returning. We hope that if you haven’t ridden in a while, that you would experience something different when you get back on. We want people to have that customer experience that’s very positive.

One of the key investments that we’ve made this year – people will see this if they’re riding, or if they’re returning for a while – is we’ve developed a 24-hour security operations center that you can reach via 238-RIDE. And you can actually talk with one of our security personnel who can actually dispatch some of the teams that we have out there to deal with different issues that riders might see. So we really want to make sure that people know that’s out there, 238-RIDE and please get in contact with us.

Norcross: Earlier this month, the Portland Mercury reported that a majority of the board members at TriMet are not regular riders of the system themselves. What about you? As an employee and the head of security, are you on the system a lot?

Wilson: It is very important to be on our system if you work at TriMet. And yes, I am. I also participate with missions out in the community as well, with our law enforcement team. I grew up in this area. I grew up riding TriMet. TriMet is an important and integral part of our community. I really think all of us should be riding it, but particularly those that work at TriMet.

I will say that the data from those taps doesn’t necessarily give a complete picture of somebody’s ridership and so that there’s a little bit more of a nuance there. But I do think that the majority of the people that work at TriMet, we do want to use our system and do use our system regularly. And this is something that the executive team at TriMet, as well as employees, were challenged to do often. It’s vitally important that those that are tasked with making sure the system is safe, reliable and clean are using it as well, and also helping us stress test it and communicate when we see that issues are happening out on the system.

It’s really important that our employees, particularly myself, as well as our chief safety officer, that we’re aware of the issues that our customers are experiencing and we’re trying to devise very good ways to address them.

Norcross: Your agency increased fares at the beginning of this year. And of course, you were not involved in that decision in your role as the chief safety officer. But what kind of impact has that had on ridership that you can tell?

Wilson: Well, like I said, our riders are returning. Our ridership has continued to go up despite that increase in fare. Obviously, anytime you do a fare increase, it allows us some more revenue to be able to spend on things like safety and security improvements. So we appreciate our riders being a part of that and paying that additional fare. But I would just say that our ridership has been going up consistently since February 2020, since that drop off. In June of 2024, we actually saw the highest weekly ridership since February of 2020.

A contributing factor of a lot of this ridership is the amount of events and the amount of actual activity that’s happening in Portland that we’re able to be a part of. Even just in this Foo Fighters concert last Friday, a lot of riders out there. I mean, that’s just so exciting for us to see and be a part of. Obviously, in June, we had the Rose Festival – a lot of people were riding there. We’ve really been able to take advantage of those really highly congested times, when we’re all, as Portlanders, taking advantage of some really fun events downtown. We want to be a part of that and we want to continue to showcase the efforts that we’ve made on making a more safe experience for our riders.

So if you haven’t ridden in a while, if you’re a listener, I would like you to just to take a look at it, feel free to contact our security, 238-RIDE. And I think you’re gonna notice some key differences, and we really want to get back to that pre-pandemic full ridership number and start to make some advancements. We’re about 71% right now of where we were in 2019. So it’s important for us to continue to stay focused on that, but we’re getting there.

Norcross: Andrew Wilson, thank you so much for the time.

Wilson: Yeah, thanks, Geoff.

Norcross: Andrew Wilson is the chief safety officer and executive director of safety and security for TriMet.

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