CapMetro adding security guards to bus stops amid safety concerns

CapMetro adding security guards to stops

CapMetro will be adding unarmed security guards to certain stops marked as "hot spots."

AUSTIN, Texas - Capital Metro is adding security guards to some of its major bus stops and transit centers in Austin.

The transit agency said this is an effort to improve safety. Bus riders told FOX 7 Austin there are incidents on buses every day.

"These will be our eyes in the field for us," CapMetro executive vice president Gardner Tabon said.

The transit agency is adding unarmed, contracted security guards at Republic Square, the South Congress and North Lamar Transit Centers, and the Tech Ridge Park and Ride. Apparently, these are hot spots that need extra help as riders and employees expressed their concerns.

"We are trying to enhance and grow our ridership and we feel like this may be just another tool in the toolbox to get that to happen," Tabon said.

MORE CAPMETRO NEWS

A year ago, a CapMetro bus driver was shot in Southeast Austin by what the transit agency believed was a stray bullet. In April, a person was stabbed on a CapMetro bus in downtown Austin.

Currently, CapMetro has intervention specialists and public safety ambassadors. The transit agency said the ambassadors are usually riding the buses, so the security guards will be at the bus stops.

"We want to start at least with a handful and see if we need to expand," Tabon said.

CapMetro said they’ll evaluate after about six months.

"It gives us the ability to take the data we already have about incidents in the system, gather more data, because we'll have more eyes out there to tell us what's going on at these hours that we currently don't have staff out there and then be able to thoughtfully move on from there," CapMetro president and CEO Dottie Watkins said.

These security guards aren’t replacing the Transit Police Department that’s in the works. CapMetro said the police force of about 12 officers will be operational in 2025.