Madeline Brozen, deputy director of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, wrote a Los Angeles Times op-ed about ways to make L.A. Metro trains safer for riders. Agency officials have added more security and transit ambassadors to create a safe environment, but Brozen also suggested looking at ways to increase ridership, as the bus system has done. “The best way forward is to take lessons from the bus and get more people on board to enforce public transit’s social norms,” Brozen wrote. “The bus system’s relationship between more riders and less crime is proof positive.” Bus ridership is 77% of what it was in the days before COVID-19, while train ridership has remained below 50% of its pre-pandemic levels. The sparsely populated cars have led to concerning behavior, with some train riders smoking cigarettes or openly using drugs.