Could Charlotte transit leaders add barriers to the light rail system?

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Charlotte transit leaders are looking for ways to make the light rail safer after two major violent events over the span of about three months. In St Louis, Missouri leaders of the MetroLink are in the final stages of their Secure Platform Plan.

After a study of the system, MetroLink transit leaders used $61 million dollars of public and private funding to install security gating and fencing while re-configuring real time cameras and updating fare enforcement technology.

“Fare regulation is the very basic foundation of security on a public transportation system. If you have a free system, you will lose your system.” Kevin Scott, Executive VP of Public Affairs and Safety for MetroLink said. “Resoundingly, from a security standpoint, it levels the playing field relative to controlling those types of environments and mitigating the opportunity for to have those spur of the moment, heat of the moment type occurrences.”

Scott says they are already seeing a return on the investment.

“What we’ve seen thus far at 11 platforms that were operating is we’ve seen about a 50% reduction in overall rates of incidents at those locations and we’ve also realized a substantial increase in ridership in those locations,” Scott said.

Tariq Bokhari served on Charlotte City Council and worked for the Federal Transit Administration. He says securing the system will take more than barriers.

“To solve for fare evasion if you don’t have the barriers and the badged police officers physically protecting it, people are either, you know, countering the barriers or you don’t have enough manpower to be able to solve it,” Bokhari said.

Bokhari hopes the new Metropolitan Public Transit Authority will commit to finding safety solutions with the new pot of money created by the one cent sales tax.

“Our community, I think, has spoken loudly. This is a priority for them,” Bokhari said. “Now everyone has the opportunity to say we’re going to spend a record breaking amount of money, let’s make sure we prioritize safety.”

St Louis is scheduled to finish its project by the end of January. In Charlotte, the MPTA meets for the first time on Thursday and safety will likely be a part of their discussion.