Last week, business and political leaders in the Bay Area openly asked Gov. Gavin Newsom to step in and make BART safer, which led to a fight with transit officials.
The fight shows that people don’t agree on how to keep the Bay Area’s transit system safe, or even if it’s a problem at all.
Recent scary attacks on BART trains, including one in which a man slashed a woman’s throat, led the Bay Area Council to write to Newsom’s office and ask that he put more California Highway Patrol officers on trains and in stations, like what was done recently in Oakland to deal with crime.
“Urgent action and additional resources are needed to make sure that no more lives are lost or injured and that AAPI and other vulnerable transit users feel safe,” the letter says, calling it a “life-saving request.”
The letter was signed by many elected leaders from the Bay Area, such as Assemblymembers Mike Fong and Matt Haney and state Sen. Dave Min.
But the back-and-forth between the council, BART, and Newsom’s office shows that no one agrees on where to put the cops or even if they should be put there at all.
The letter was signed by the heads of more than 100 Asian American and Pacific Islander groups and individuals. A fifth of all BART users are Asian American, the council says.
BART does keep track of crime in its stops and trains, but it doesn’t break down the data by demographics, so it’s hard to say if one group is being unfairly targeted.
Because of the message, BART wrote back that they “would welcome the strategic deployment of the CHP in the areas around our stations.
These steps will help keep BART safe. It wasn’t clear from the agency’s response whether they would allow CHP agents on trains and in stations.
The BART spokesperson also said that the agency’s data shows that the total crime rate is 12% lower than it was at this time last year, and violent crime is 6% lower.
The agency wrote, “The Bay Area Council’s promise to run a marketing campaign to recruit more police officers, Ambassadors, and Crisis Intervention Specialists may be the most important thing that can be done to make BART safer.
Although 2023 was BART’s best year for hiring new officers since 2019, it is still hard to find officers all over the region…” We are excited to see their marketing strategy, which will help with these goals.
The agency seemed to be talking about an unofficial effort the council ran in the past to hire police officers in general, not just for BART, said Rufus Jeffris, a spokesman for the Bay Area Council.
Jeffris told KQED in an email, “It’s very disappointing to hear that BART’s only response is to switch the blame to someone else instead of taking responsibility for keeping riders safe.
We helped BART get more than $1.2 billion in federal and other grants, but as far as we know, none of that money was used to hire or send more uniformed officers to work on the system.”
However, Newsom’s office has not made a decision, even though they are in the middle of the debate. When KQED asked for feedback, a Newsom spokesperson said that BART would have the final word.
“The state is not in charge of running or overseeing BART’s operations or budget—it is run by an elected board of directors,” the spokeswoman wrote.
However, since the Governor took office, the state has promised over $400 million to fight hate crimes and nearly $550 million to help BART this year.” The Bay Area Council got the same answer from Newsom’s office.
“We met with Newsom’s staff, but they told us that the California Highway Patrol can’t do much to help BART,” Jeffris wrote in an email. “We’re still talking to them about the problem to see if there are any other ways to solve it.”
The council said that it is still talking to BART directly about the problem, especially about how the agency is currently using its own cops.
CEO of the council Jim Wunderman said that coming to an agreement on how to keep passengers safe is important for the transport agency and for the Bay Area as a whole.
He said, “It’s an amazing area built around this amazing bay.” “But there must be safe, easy, and dependable ways for people to cross the bay for it to work.”
