A local transit union and a rider advocacy group want the transit authority to rethink its decision to contract with Portland Patrol, Inc.
For 15 years, TriMet Rider Advocates helped de-escalate high-tension situations on public transit vehicles and platforms, while also providing customer service to transit users.
Until TriMet cut the program in 2009, these advocates – all trained in conflict resolution techniques – worked in concert with police to help keep buses and MAX lines safe.
The program began in 1994, when TriMet partnered with Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods to staff bus lines with gang outreach workers. Over the years, the advocates became known as an invaluable component of the transit system.
According to news reports at the time, the program was cut for budgetary reasons, however TriMet spokesperson Roberta Altstadt told Street Roots that it was also cut due to "qualifications of the advocates and some of the intervention methods used."
The same year the program was cut, it was the recipient of Portland’s annual Public Safety Partner Award, with the city commending its advocates for the help they provided to riders, “especially the elderly, disabled, youth and people in crisis.”
As news of the advocates’ termination spread, transit employees voiced their disapproval, with hundreds of operators signing a petition that demanded the program be saved.
But it was not saved, and in the years since, TriMet has relied on its field staff, Transit Police and private security to enforce its rules and promote safety. In January, the transit authority announced plans to contract with Portland Patrol, Inc., a private security firm, to add 60 additional uniformed security guards to its system.
Now, transit worker and bus rider unions say that bringing back the Rider Advocate program would be a better way to combat security threats than adding more uniformed security.
“It really is militaristic,” Andrew Riley, spokesperson for Amalgamated Transit Union 757, said of TriMet’s use of uniformed police officers and private security.
“You’ve got folks with weapons, with uniforms, who are pulling riders aside, grilling them about their personal information and that sort of thing, and we think that that confrontational approach doesn’t work,” he said.
Alternately, he explained, Rider Advocates can build deeper relationships with transit users and take a much more collaborative, and less combative, approach.
“We don’t think that continuing to militarize transit is going to actually reap rewards in terms of security and safety,” he said. “Assaults on transit workers and things that don’t rise to the level of assault, but are menacing situations, are at an all time high – it’s happening basically every day.”
FURTHER READING: TriMet fare jumpers won’t be charged with Class A misdemeanors
He said when the union brought up the idea of bringing back the advocate program during its last round of contract negotiations with TriMet, “they refused to even consider it.”
That’s why the Amalgamated Transit Union 757, along with OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon and Bus Riders Unite, are urging their constituents and members of the public to pack an upcoming public hearing on TriMet’s proposed budget, to show support of bringing back Rider Advocates, Riley said.
This meeting of the TriMet Budget Committee is slated to begin at 9 a.m. March 28 in the Plaza Conference Room at the World Trade Center Building No. 2 at 121 SW Salmon St. The meeting is open to the public, and those wishing to testify can sign up to do so before the meeting begins.
The transit and riders unions have discussed re-introducing the Rider Advocates program with a core of volunteer advocates, but with the intention that TriMet will move to provide funding. Riley said the advocates will likely be contract workers, however, just like the their predecessors, they will also be unionized.
Contracting with Portland Patrol Inc. means that nonunion guards would be performing some of the same duties as union employees, such as fare enforcement, said Riley.
And, he said, because fare-jumpers can opt for community service instead of paying fines, having Portland Patrol, Inc. issue citations creates a conflict of interest.
Portland Patrol, Inc. is a contracted partner of the Downtown Portland Clean & Safe District, which regularly utilizes court-ordered community service labor. This affiliation could create a cycle where one arm of a partnership is able to use law enforcement to indirectly send offenders to work for the other partner.
According to TriMet spokesperson Altstadt, the transit authority is not supportive of "self-appointed, untrained, and unaccountable" rider advocates.
However, she stated in an email, "While we have implemented a number safety and security measures over the years, we have heard from feedback the community and plan to work with TEAC (Transit Equity Advisory Committee) to evaluate if a customer liaison/rider advocate position could work again in our overall safety and security strategy."
She also pointed out that TriMet has seven outreach and community relations representatives who ride the system daily providing customer service to customers and additional TriMet presence.
Email Senior Staff Reporter Emily Green at emily@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @greenwrites.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: TriMet Budget Committee public hearing, including testimony on bringing back Rider Advocates
WHEN: 9 a.m. March 28
WHERE: Plaza Conference Room at the World Trade Center Building No. 2, 121 SW Salmon St.
Street Roots is an award-winning, nonprofit, weekly newspaper focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. Our newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Learn more about Street Roots
