SEPTA
Thanks to SEPTA’s focus on improving safety and security on its system, incidents of crime in most categories “held steady” during the first quarter of 2025, following the largest one-year drop in serious incidents ever recorded by the SEPTA Transit Police Department, the agency recently announced.
According to the new quarterly data (download below) released on April 24, there were reductions in shootings and aggravated assaults compared to the same period last year. Total crime on the system is 28% lower than the three-year average preceding 2024.
“These results are proof that what we are doing is working,” said SEPTA Interim General Manager Scott A. Sauer. “Safety is SEPTA’s highest value, and over the past three years, we have more than doubled spending on safety, security, and cleaning priorities – demonstrating our commitment to deliver the safest, cleanest, and most reliable service.”
At the same time, SEPTA says it continues to hire record numbers of new police officers with 248 uniformed officers on staff—a 27% increase since the end of 2022 and the largest police force in over a decade. An additional 13 officers are expected to graduate from police academy this June.
SEPTA also continues to combat fare evasion through enhanced policing and new technology and infrastructure. Increased enforcement of fare evasion, the agency says, “has yielded broader customer safety benefits with fare evasion citations leading to hundreds of arrests of individuals wanted for other crimes.”
“With additional police officers, we can take a data driven approach to fare evasion – evaluating officer interactions, camera footage, and station revenue to determine hot spots for fare evasion, deploy police officers, and remove offenders from the system,” said SEPTA Transit Police Chief Charles Lawson.
SEPTA is installing more full-height fare gates that are designed to prevent fare evaders from jumping over or crawling under turnstiles. These gates, the agency says, “proved to be an effective mechanism to deter, detect, and quantify fare evasion during a pilot at 69th Street Transit Center.”
Because cleanliness is directly tied to safety and security, SEPTA says it has hired 100 additional staff in the past year, and the agency now has more than 700 cleaners and maintenance personnel deployed strategically to keep stations and vehicles cleaner and respond to issues as they arise. New initiatives like “pit crews” that perform mid-route cleaning of Broad Street [B] and Market-Frankford [L] Line cars throughout the service day, and an emphasis on station deep cleaning, are starting to be reflected in improved scores in customer satisfaction surveys, according to the agency.
LA Metro
Metro Board Chair Janice Hahn on April 24 announced that the LAX/Metro Transit Center Station will open to the public on June 6.
This historic project, years in the making, not only will add a direct train connection to one of the busiest airports in the world, but it will also welcome visitors coming to Los Angeles for upcoming global events, such as the FIFA World Cup 2026, Super Bowl 2027, and the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, according to LA Metro.
This new station, the agency says, addresses a growing need throughout the Southland. LAX is one of the busiest airports in the United States––in 2024, it handled more than 76 million passengers with approximately 200,000 passengers a day. It’s also one of the biggest origin and destination airports in the world, as millions of Southern Californians rely on LAX for long-haul and international flights. That means more people are coming in and out of the airport’s “horseshoe,” fueling infamous traffic congestion on surrounding streets.
Now, LA Metro says, there will be another option. Located at Aviation Boulevard and 96th Street, the LAX/Metro Transit Center offers riders dozens of convenient transit connections. The station serves two light rail lines–– the C and K Lines––as well as several Metro and partner agency bus lines, including Beach Cities, Big Blue Bus, Culver City Bus, LAX FlyAway, GTrans and Torrance Transit. Riders will also find a bus plaza, a bike hub, and restrooms, providing reliable alternatives to taxis, rideshares, and private vehicles.
“The LAX/Metro Transit Center is poised to transform the way we move through LA County, but there is more to come,” LA Metro says. “In 2026, the Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) will open the Automated People Mover (APM) seamlessly connecting the airport terminals to our new station. Until then, LAWA will provide bus shuttles from the new station to the terminals.”
More information on the project is available here.
