The text<\/a> of the bill, introduced in November and currently being debated in the Congressional Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, says that these unarmed roles will collaborate with law enforcement to deter and report disruptive behavior, assist with medical emergencies, and handle minor, noncriminal conflicts.<\/p>\n \u201cWe support all of our riders,\u201d Simon said at the morning conference as riders walked by. \u201cAn integrated approach was desperately needed. And now we want to spread that model all over the nation. Transit ambassadors ease the burden on sworn officers, allowing them to focus on urgent safety and violent crime.\u201d<\/p>\n Simon mentioned BART\u2019s recent announcement that crime within the system had decreased by 41%<\/a> over the last year, attributing that success in part to collaboration between sworn officers and transit ambassadors. BART had previously said that the drop was largely due to its new, modernized gates, but at the press conference, BART Board President Melissa Hernandez said it was \u201cpeople, sworn officers and unarmed staff, working together that are making the biggest difference.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe RIDER Safety Act helps us expand our unarmed presence. Riders have been loud and clear that they want safety, cleanliness, and reliability. This bill helps us deliver the safest BART possible,\u201d Hernandez said.<\/p>\n Victor Flores, a BART director who represents parts of Berkeley, said the social work background of these civilian forces make a difference.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn the last quarter alone, our team connected 300 people to services and conducted more than 1,600 welfare checks,\u201d Flores said. \u201cSafety is about presence, partnership, and ensuring all riders feel comfortable using BART.\u201c<\/p>\n Specialists \u2018better deliver assistance\u2019 to unhoused people That quarterly report<\/a>, released on December 4, 2025, shows that police dispatch deployed a crisis intervention specialist \u2014 an ambassador \u2014 206 times between July and September of last year. But that number is the tip of the iceberg. Another metric, Calls Diverted, tallies how many times a specialist deals with a situation on their own that would have previously gone to police dispatch, and was 2,591 for the quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n The report said that La Familia<\/a> and Bay Area Community Services<\/a> receive the most referrals from BART ambassadors among Alameda County providers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Previous work by UCLA researchers<\/a> on transit ambassador programs that focus on the unhoused found that these programs are typically more successful at providing referrals than police are.\u00a0<\/p>\n In one 2021 study<\/a>, scholars found that ambassadors had greater expertise on the needs of unhoused individuals and that the programs had cost-sharing benefits. \u201cThese collaborations focus on connecting those experiencing homelessness to the broader social service system, beyond what operators directly administer, which can better deliver assistance and support,\u201d the researchers wrote.<\/p>\n A December 2025<\/a> study, focused on the Los Angeles-area Metro system, found that ambassadors spent the majority of their time de-escalating, administering Narcan to prevent overdoses, and orienting riders. They also found that while the ambassadors appeared to be \u201cmaking a positive contribution to the system,\u201d the program still needed many improvements, including training in conflict resolution.<\/p>\n \u201cThe contractor model, while quick to implement and iterate, created some employment drawbacks during the pilot phase, such as paying below living wages, lack of on-the-job resources, and reports of strenuous working conditions,\u201d the report summary stated.\u00a0<\/p>\n We asked BART spokesperson Alicia Trost whether the agency had created its own reports on the ambassador program, given that it is now one of the oldest in the country. She said there were no analytical reports but the agency did provide data in every quarterly BART report<\/a> as a performance measure.<\/p>\n One of the most eye-popping pieces of data we saw from the last two years of reports is the number of wellness checks made in the winter months by these specialists. Between January and March 2024, ambassadors conducted 3,593 wellness checks, and during the same time period a year earlier, they conducted 4,195.\u00a0<\/p>\n A body of research has established the deleterious effects of police encounters with people color<\/a>, especially Black people, so any program that seeks to reduce the number of these encounters is likely to lead to reduce such negative outcomes. A report last year from the Center for Policing Equity<\/a>, a Yale nonprofit research center, found that BART\u2019s own police officers and other fare enforcement operations were having a detrimental effect on Black and Brown and low-income riders, by making them feel less safe.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the conference on Friday, one of the agency\u2019s crisis intervention specialists, Rahman Bagby, who said he\u2019d worked as a train driver before, said he appreciated being part of a program he saw as \u201ccompassionate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMany individuals we encounter face housing insecurity, substance use disorder, and mental health challenges,\u201d Bagby said. \u201cThose struggles make them human. We meet people with humility and end every contact with respect. Safety is a civil right, and everyone\u2019s civil rights should be respected.\u201d<\/p>\n AC Transit director Joel Young said at the conference that if the bill passes, the agency would seek to hire unarmed ambassadors on its bus-rapid transit line that runs from downtown Oakland through International Boulevard to San Leandro.<\/p>\n Madeline Brozen, the Deputy Director of UCLA\u2019s Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, who has worked on crisis ambassador studies, told The Oaklandside that Simon\u2019s bill was a \u201cuseful step\u201d to help pay for more transit ambassadors.<\/p>\n \u201cAgencies need the flexibility and confidence to use federal funds to pay for this new type of role, so that, if a demonstration is successful, they can continue to use these funds to establish a program.\u201d<\/p>\n “*” indicates required fields<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, Rep. Lateefah Simon called a conference inside Oakland\u2019s 19th Street BART station to introduce a federal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163971,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[3767,2465,2466,143,145,144],"class_list":{"0":"post-163970","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-bart","9":"tag-home-highlight","10":"tag-home-lead","11":"tag-oakland","12":"tag-oakland-headlines","13":"tag-oakland-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770233775_942_crisis-intervention-specialists-for-BART-in-San-francisco--1600x1067.jpg\")
BART crisis intervention specialist Rahman Bagby, left, and other ambassadors speaking to an unhoused person in the Powell BART station in San Francisco. Credit: BART<\/p>\n