How Seattle-area transit is pushing back against crime

During the thick of a Tuesday morning commute in mid-February, light rail passengers in North Seattle alerted security about a man flashing a knife.

He put the knife away, but disobeyed two guards who told him to leave the crowded train. Two more guards walked into the railcar, and the train proceeded to Capitol Hill Station, where they unlocked the man’s wheelchair brakes and rolled him out to a sidewalk.

Four sheriff’s deputies were standing in the next railcar. They overheard radio messages but didn’t feel a need to rush over there. Security was solving the problem.

It’s a scene you probably wouldn’t have found a few years ago – squads of guards and cops ready to react, and mingling with passengers.

Sound Transit and King County Metro are swinging the pendulum back toward security after abandoning nearly all enforcement in 2020 during the COVID outbreak and a depolicing outcry sparked by the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd.

The swing started in 2024, after labor unions demanded relief from assaults and drug smoke on trains and buses, while random violence, such as a hammer attack at the Beacon Hill Station entrance, spooked the public.

But it took a cataclysm – the killing of Metro bus driver Shawn Yim by an angry passenger last December – to put crime deterrence onto the political fast track.

“It’s unfortunate that we had Shawn Yim’s death to wake us up, but if you do look at the circumstances and facts that led into that, we’ve had this problem for some time,” Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell said in March to a 120-member task force of managers, unionists, transit advocates and law enforcers.

King County, which operates Metro buses, Seattle streetcars and Sound Transit light rail, approved $26 million more for security in July, in addition to previously approved spending for more police and lightly armed security officers. Sound Transit previously signed deals totaling $250 million with four private contractors to provide transit security guards through 2029.

Between them, the two agencies have nearly tripled their security staff on the streets, to 520 employees countywide, with a goal of having a security presence on 25% of trains, and at all stations, all operating hours.

They’ve ordered hard barriers to shield bus drivers, and ordered deescalation training. There are also behavioral health teams at Burien Transit Center and Sound Transit’s downtown stations, and new groups at Aurora Village and Lake City.

“I have a lot of hope because of the commitment we’re getting from all the politicians,” said Greg Woodfill, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 587, which represents 4,000 employees. “Money is no object, and they all recognize the problem.

“We’re seeing some progress, but let’s not say that we’ve done a lot, because a lot of the stuff we’re talking about is going to come in the future. There’s nothing since six months ago that’s been put into place that’s making anything better.”

How riders feel

Survey findings suggest travelers feel more at ease.

Metro’s latest rider survey shows 84% are somewhat or very satisfied with safety aboard the bus during the day, and 64% at night, results that are twice as positive as in 2022. Customer complaints are down in the Aurora Avenue North, Rainier Avenue South and International Boulevard South corridors.

Yet violence has still happened this summer. A man was shot in the head at a Northgate Station entrance in what charging papers called a targeted attack. A shooting at Renton Transit Center shocked arriving transit workers and passengers. Even in quiet Mill Creek, a shootout occurred in which three people fired guns from inside and outside a Community Transit bus.

It’s too early to declare improvement, because data is too limited or mixed to draw conclusions.

For instance, in the first five months of 2025, Metro reported five physical assaults on its workers, a decline since last year, and 16 on passengers, which is up. Sound Transit, with more service and security staff circulating near the public, reported 61 physical assaults on workers (one requiring hospital care), 13 injury assaults against passengers and 15 weapons threats.

Nationally, about 2,400 workers and passengers suffered so-called major assaults requiring hospital care last year, an all-time high, a federal database says. That’s one per 3 million trips, and a third of those injured were transit workers, who face elevated risks.

Metro, Sound Transit and Snohomish County’s Community Transit reported a combined 137 major assaults to the federal government since 2020.

Beyond direct security initiatives, Metro General Manager Michelle Allison calls for a broader culture of “care and presence” to indirectly enhance safety. That includes a return of fare enforcement as of May 31 after a five-year hiatus, though spot-checks are sporadic.

An increased cleaning crew of 50 workers maintains 1,800 bus shelters 24 hours a day, including two daily laps around litter-laden Aurora Avenue. Metro’s poll found 67% of riders were satisfied with cleanliness, the best showing since 2019.

Signs plastered in buses remind people to pay the fare, report harassment and “Ride Right” by not smoking, littering or drinking alcohol.

Bus driver Zematra Bacon, who drives Metro’s 3, 4 and 44 routes, compared a moving bus to airplane travel, a shared space where behavior norms must be higher than what’s tolerated on the streets.

“If you yell at the flight attendant, if you do anything to another passenger, you’re off. Period,” she told the task force. “Point blank, no questions. We’ll figure it out at the terminal, but you’re not riding.”

Police and security

This year’s most visible change is a surge of uniformed guards and occasional police patrols.

Now that enforcement is in vogue again, the agencies are striving for a friendlier approach, both in police who offer help and work with social services, and by new fare regulations that avoid sending low-income people to court.

The Metro police corps of 59 deputies last year grew to 69 as of July, said Maj. Todd Morrell, chief of that unit. New budgets will allow 89 officers next year, but long-term funding isn’t identified yet. Sound Transit’s police counts are nearly identical.

As cops return in greater numbers, they’re supposed to be visible, compared to past tactics where officers in cars rushed to call-outs. A four-officer community policing unit rides Metro daily in hot spots.

“I don’t come to work hoping to arrest people and ruin their day, or ruin their life. I want them to be the best they can be,” said Detective Spencer Boyd on a quiet morning when his team rode the H Line between Burien, White Center and West Seattle.

Too many people expect simple answers, Boyd said. “Either they want me kicking in doors and taking people to jail, or they want support services with me no longer around.”

The Seattle Police Department, which doesn’t patrol transit, may give more support. In the early 2020s, SPD was so short-staffed that officers would only respond to transit callouts for a violent felony. Policies are changing, Harrell said in a July interview.

“It should be 100% that whenever there’s a situation in the back, and the driver’s able to alert either their police or ours, that we respond immediately at the next stop,” including for drug use calls, Harrell said. “The stakes have changed” because fentanyl is a threat to health.

Even with good response time, there’s no way to thwart every possible crime on transit property in a megalopolis of 3 million people.

One afternoon in July, an 18-year-old man boarded the H Line in Burien, sat next to another teen and pressed him against the window. On-bus video recorded the attacker pulling an orange box-cutter knife, as the pair struggled, leaving by the side door after the bus stopped, detectives said in charging papers. The victim suffered six wounds and a collapsed lung, they said.

Deputies and transit police swarmed the neighborhood, where a detective spotted a suspect walking with bloody hands. They chased him and subdued him with a Taser 12 minutes after the stabbing.

The incident is a reminder that, as Sound Transit wrote in its annual safety report, “The crimes against persons occurring on our system reflect the crimes in the areas we serve.”

Don’t take the bait

Metro has taught its drivers conflict avoidance for years with a simple phrase: “Don’t take the bait.”

Among the directives: State the fare once and don’t get into disputes. If one erupts, open all doors to avoid trapping bystanders. Don’t intervene in arguments or fights among passengers. Don’t approach people under the influence.

“Bus operators aren’t law enforcement or security personnel,” said Rebecca Frankhouser, Metro chief safety officer. “Their job is to drive the coach in a safe manner.”

About 4,000 employees, including many who operate and maintain Sound Transit, will each take three deescalation classes totaling 14 ½ hours this year. Local 587’s Woodfill prefers the phrase “risk reduction” to underscore that front-line workers shouldn’t be blamed if incidents still happen.

Classes include training by Idaho-based AVADE to explore bias, empathy, situational awareness and incident response, similar to its courses for health care and retail workers. Woodfill says Local 587 members are giving off “mixed signals” that AVADE is too generic, “just not fit for a transit operator,” a criticism that Metro’s Allison disputes.

“We’re not done rolling out the training,” she said, noting that a third phase of training will cover onboard mental health crises and riders who seek shelter on transit.

The federally sponsored Mineta Transportation Institute encouraged transit agencies to go further, including adding the “Red Kite Program” designed in war zones, to relieve workers’ post-traumatic stress. Metro and Local 587 already offer peer support.

Deescalation

What the agencies can do is keep some tensions from boiling over, even as passengers wait to board transit.

On any summer evening, you’ll find guards and maybe police monitoring the corner of Third and Pike. Groups of three guards hop on and off buses, while another team stands outside the Ross store. They give directions and walk through arriving buses, looking for riders who collapsed or are sleeping.

They called for help with a collapsed man on the sidewalk. It turned out he was drunk, and paramedics yielded to a county mobile health team who knew him by name, asking “Can we help you get up?” and walked him into a van.

Among them was Dwayne Maxted, a sociable and stocky Metro guard wearing yellow. He draws on the recently added deescalation training every day. “It was very useful,” he said. “Communication is everything, you know what I’m saying?”

In mid-August, Maxted said, a man on the E Line was making riders uncomfortable, staring at and harassing women.

As the man clung to a pole near the farebox, Maxted offered his own ham sandwich, some water and a cigarette in exchange for the man walking off voluntarily.

“I tried to appeal to something that maybe he needed or wanted,” Maxted said. “That way, I can get him off the bus and conversate with him.”

Driver protection

Immediately after the COVID-19 outbreak, Metro attached plastic swing doors known as “sneeze guards” as a health precaution, but began planning last year for tougher defenses.

Lockable barriers of steel and shatterproof glass are on order for 89 rechargeable-battery buses, while the remaining 1,200 hybrid and wire-powered coaches will be retrofitted, but not by early 2026 as officials had hoped, due in part to a slow supply chain.

Los Angeles Metro became the first U.S. agency to equip its whole fleet last year, and it claims it helped lead to a drop in assaults. The transit union called for barriers throughout North America.

“After 9/11, you can’t get to the pilots anymore, but transit operators are still unprotected,” said Jeff Rosenberg, ATU’s national government affairs director, who cited a new retrofit project at Everett-based Community Transit as a model.

Perception and reality

Although assault stats don’t show a clear pattern yet, the agencies report less misconduct such as smoking, onboard drug use, loud music and fare evasion this year, along with customers’ subjective sense of better safety, which itself is a goal.

“It feels to me like things are moving in the right direction,” said Seattle mayoral candidate Katie Wilson, who travels with a toddler and founded the Transit Riders Union, a social-justice advocacy group.

She’s reluctant to draw conclusions because of some violent incidents this summer, and her experience is anecdotal. Crime is easing nationwide, she noted. A return of more riders in Seattle helps, but solving the problem requires more housing and shelters, she said.

Subjectively, fentanyl use on trains and buses seems to be waning, said the union’s Woodfill, while Metro says drug complaints decreased one-third in 2024.

Metro reports 75% of passengers paid this year, while Sound Transit reported 89% fare compliance on light rail, improved from just over 55% two years ago.

Perhaps the most potent fix for transit safety would be a boost in riders. That would add more “presence” to Allison’s theory that “care and presence” lead to more rider confidence and more actual safety. Metro and Sound Transit carried 443,000 daily passengers in June, steady growth that’s still only 78% of prepandemic peaks.

Todd Litman, a pro-transit analyst with the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, calls for a “reality check” about safety in a new report. He finds that transit incidents make up less than 1/1000th of all U.S. crime, and when road crashes are tallied, individual drivers and passengers suffer six times as many injuries per mile as those on transit.

Hearkening to famed New York urbanist Jane Jacobs, he said more “eyes on the street” are proven to reduce crime where pedestrians abound, and Litman predicts similar results for buses and trains.

“The more noncriminals are using transit, the more safe it becomes.”