The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), the main public-transportation option for L.A. County’s 10 million residents, has acknowledged a staggering drop in the number of passengers using its buses and trains. Overall train ridership is at just 62 percent of pre-pandemic levels; bus ridership, 71 percent. Female bus ridership fell from 53 percent to 49 percent and rail ridership dropped from 46 percent to 44 percent, compared with pre-pandemic figures.
The cause of the drop-off is no mystery: the Metro is beset by drugs, bodies, human waste, and violence. Nearly 50 percent of women surveyed cited crime, homelessness, sexual harassment, and lack of safety as their main concerns, and cleanliness was the top issue for all passengers. Reports of violent crimes—including murder, rape, aggravated assault, and robbery—in the system rose by 24 percent in 2022 compared with the previous year. Complaints about drug use and sales reported by riders on the Metro Transit Watch app skyrocketed nearly 100 percent during that same period. Twenty-one people have died on trains and buses in the Metro system so far this year, already equaling the total figure for 2022 and a significant uptick from past years.
The Metro helped create the crisis it now faces. The agency has sided with anti-police activists and worked to remove officers from buses and trains. In the summer of 2020, directors voted 9–2 to study ways to deemphasize the role of police in the system....
Earlier this month, in United States ex rel. Zafirov v. Florida Medical Associates, Inc., the Eleventh Circuit joined four other circuits in holding that the qui tam provisions of the False Claims ...