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As the 3000-series train whooshed north on the Green Line, Dayana Osorio moved from car to car at each stop, smiling at passengers in her Metro-embossed shirt while scanning the seats for people to help, signs of trouble or anything that required attention.
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Her eyes passed over a man in pink-rimmed sunglasses staring out the window in Hyattsville. She smiled at a mother cradling an infant who awoke from a nap in a green stroller. She walked to a man slumped in the last row with a can of potato chips, telling him they had reached Greenbelt — the end of the line.
“Hello, sir. … Sir, this is the last stop,” she said. “Are you heading towards downtown?”
The man grunted. She let him continue sleeping through an aimless journey back toward D.C.
“We try to avoid any confrontation with any kind of customers and leave that to transit [police] or the security officers that are at the stations,” Osorio said. “I always put on a smile.”
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The response may seem light-handed for a rail and bus system that has suffered through high-profile crime incidents in recent months — mirroring those elsewhere in the nation’s capital and at other transit agencies — but it’s also Metro’s latest strategy to combat infractions and instill a sense of order and security. A new program is putting Metro employees, known as ambassadors, on the front lines in the fight to lure back riders after the pandemic altered transit usage and cut rail ridership in half.
The subsequent revenue spiral has transit leaders scrambling to find more passengers and government funding to close a $750 million operating deficit in the next fiscal year, a number that is expected to climb in the future.
Metro looks to curb transit crime with help from other agencies’ officers
Ambassadors also act as eyes and ears for Metro Transit Police, a short-staffed department that has enlisted the help of other police agencies and private security to help combat rising crime. Six people have been killed by violence in the bus and rail system so far this year, compared to none at this time last year. Aggravated assaults are up 21 percent year-over-year, while robberies have increased 127 percent.
Part of Metro’s response, which includes stationing police or security guards at all times at some stations, has been hiring 25 ambassadors spread throughout the transit system. Osorio on most days is responsible for the northern half of the Green Line, stretching from Greenbelt to Chinatown. She is fluent in Spanish, and her territory includes neighborhoods with large numbers of Spanish-speaking riders.
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Ambassadors carry only a small fanny pack filled with maps to disseminate and a lanyard of keys that provide access to station kiosks, auxiliary rooms and restrooms.
The agency provides yellow polo shirts bearing Metro’s emblem and the words “customer experience liaison.” The black Skechers might be the most important part of her attire. Osorio, 27, is on her feet the entire eight-hour shift, sometimes standing on her toes to get a clear view of customer activity ahead.
Osorio’s primary role is serving as a roaming customer service representative on trains and platforms, providing riders with directions, timely updates or help during emergencies. But it’s other facets of her job that are most crucial to an agency regaining its footing.
The presence of ambassadors, who are paid $23 an hour, is meant to reassure riders the system is being monitored and well-managed a year after regional leaders questioned Metro’s oversight because of fare evasions, safety violations, training lapses and a train shortage.
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The ambassadors, as well as a new team of mental health crisis specialists, are part of Metro’s “holistic approach of how we are trying to be there for all of our customers,” Metro General Manager Randy Clarke said during a Metro board meeting last month. With rail ridership on the rise, Clarke has said he plans to hire more ambassadors for the program.
“Our job is to provide great service, and I think it’s another additive layer to make sure we have more visibility for safety, security and more thinking about the customer in everything we do,” he said.
A Washington Post-Schar School poll this year showed 3 in 4 riders rate Metrorail “excellent” or “good,” but safety from crime was among the biggest concerns riders have about the system.
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The ambassador program is modeled after others around the country, intended to boost security without hiring or deploying more police officers, who receive larger salaries and require months of training. Adding police also can be polarizing because of disproportionate arrests of Black passengers and what civil rights activists say are needless stops for questioning that can result in violent confrontations and arrests that can harm a rider’s record for years.
The Bay Area Rapid Transit Police Department in the San Francisco area said its roughly 10 ambassadors are “vital to making sure returning riders feel safe,” Police Chief Ed Alvarez said in a statement. BART created the position in 2020, part of the agency’s shift toward “using unarmed personnel to respond to people in crisis, such as mental health emergencies, drug overdoses or the unhoused population.”
Farther south, more than 300 Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority ambassadors wear lime-green polo shirts and black pants, connecting people to services and reporting maintenance or safety issues. In Boston, ambassadors for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority wear bright-red polo shirts. Sound Transit in the Seattle area created “fare ambassadors” to replace fare enforcement officers.
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Sarah Feinberg, who was interim president of the New York City Transit Authority in 2020 and 2021, said the city’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority hired hundreds of unarmed, orange-vested security guards with roles similar to Metro’s ambassadors. Feinberg said she sought to strike a balance of boosting security amid a spate of subway assaults and killings while avoiding divisive issues stemming from fare evasion enforcement.
“I wanted to be able to inject resources into the system immediately and with a sense of urgency that was not additional armed uniformed police officers,” she said.
The new security workers at the nation’s largest subway system reported crimes and other offenses, but also filed daily reports that pinpointed where the most needles were found, where the most pickpocketing occurred or where vandalism was growing unchecked. In turn, the MTA would send drug rehabilitation workers, homeless outreach workers, police patrols or maintenance workers.
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The effectiveness of ambassadors in accomplishing the goals of transit leaders isn’t yet clear, researchers say, because the positions are relatively new. At the same time, officials say the outreach aspects of their duties have proved effective.
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A 2021 University of California study found that service referrals made by outreach workers, such as ambassadors or other aid workers, were more effective at steering homeless people into shelters or treatment programs than referrals made by police officers.
Jacob Wasserman, a UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies research project manager who co-authored the study, said familiarity, follow-up and a person’s level of interest in outreach work might also play a role. Police commanders interviewed for the study told researchers that officers should be focused more on police work, rather than social work, said Wasserman, who frequently rode Metro’s Green Line while growing up in University Park, Md.
“This is not what police want to be doing or are trained to be doing,” he said.
Osorio said her mother, an immigrant from El Salvador, told her she wanted her to find a career that offered financial stability and satisfaction. Osorio’s mother had worked in janitorial jobs to support her family.
“She taught us to always enjoy what we do,” said Osorio, who grew up in Silver Spring. “Don’t do it just because it creates income, but because we actually like doing it.”
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She said she chose Metro because of the stable pay and benefits, and because it offers the opportunity to rise up the ranks within the 12,000-person organization.
Osorio started in March, one month after Metro mechanic Robert Cunningham was killed when he tried to intervene in a shooting at the Potomac Avenue station. His death stirred fear and anxiety for some at Metro, but Osorio said it’s not a reason to fear patrolling stations.
“Tragedies don’t only happen here in Metro, but they’ve been happening all over the nation,” she said. “It didn’t discourage me from taking the job.”
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Osorio received weeks of training to handle different crises or emergencies. If a shooting occurs, she should seek refuge in a station auxiliary room or kiosk. If violence or threats occur on a train, she is to herd passengers out at the next stop, hopefully isolating the problem onboard.
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When riders are disruptive, ambassadors are asked to determine whether they are suffering from mental health or other medical issues and whether they need help. In cases where someone is exhibiting aggression, ambassadors call central command for help and notify any nearby transit officer.
Osorio said she has encountered that situation only once, when a man showed signs of being suicidal.
She led the man away from the tracks and upstairs to the station manager’s kiosk, where medics soon took over.
During a recent shift, her ability to provide directions proved to be in greatest demand. Often, she said, people are confused by station construction or need scheduling information to make a bus-rail transfer.
The job requires attentive reading of body language, looking for signs of exasperation or confusion. In transit stations where people are constantly moving with purpose, it’s usually the people standing still who need help, she said.
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A man in a blue shirt clutching a leather-bound legal pad sought Osorio’s help to get to Glenmont. Later, a woman tried to pry a station elevator’s doors open because she was unsure it was working. Osorio stopped her, saying the elevator would return in a moment.
Nearby, she saw a puzzled young couple near an escalator and hustled over. The woman, holding a fare card, wore a sweater around her shoulder despite the summer heat. The man stood in aqua Nikes with a European-style shoulder bag looped diagonally across his chest.
Osorio instructed them to take the Red Line in the direction of Shady Grove. Exit at Farragut North, she said.
“They’re looking for the White House.”
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