Last year, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called a spike in violent crime on Los Angeles Metro buses and trains “absolutely unacceptable,” and she pledged to make public transit safer in the city.
Since then, Metro rail lines have seen a 15.5% drop in violent crimes per transit rider from 2023 to 2024, according to a report from L.A.-based nonprofit newsroom Crosstown.
The report correlates a decrease in violent crime reports and arrests with a significant increase in patrols aboard trains.
Officers spent nearly 19,000 hours patrolling trains in January 2024. By December, it was about 37,000 hours — nearly double the amount of time.
The drop in violent crimes reported doesn’t mean that crime reports in general have dropped — it’s actually on the contrary. Crosstown reports that there was a 177% increase in trespassing reports in 2024 from 2023.
There were 4,532 reports of trespassing made on the transit system last year. In 2022, there just 126.
So what’s next? Plans remain in place to put together a police force specifically made for the Metro, similar to how it did from the late 1970s until the ’90s. That could take years, however, and the plan is still in its early stages.