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Charlotte Area Transit System interim CEO Brent Cagle said Wednesday that fare enforcement on buses and light rail will be a focus in an effort to increase security, nearly two weeks after a 23-year-old woman was stabbed to death on a Lynx Blue Line train in South End.
Cagle told a special meeting of the Metropolitan Transit Commission that CATS had already increased its security budget from $5.8 million in 2023 to $18.4 million last year. He said the transit system wants to have more people checking to make sure passengers have bought a ticket — something that rarely happens, especially with people having the option to use passes on their phones.
Police said Decarlos Dejuan Brown didn’t buy a ticket before he got on the Lynx Blue Line. He is accused of murdering Iryna Zarutska who was in the same train car, near East/West Station. The two didn’t know each other. His mother told WSOC that Brown suffers from schizophrenia.
The murder shocked Charlotte, and left the city trying to reassure the public that transit is safe.
Cagle said CATS plans to create a new fare enforcement team that will work separately from security staff, who will be on the light rail more often. But he cautioned there are limits.
“It is not possible in a system our size to check every ticket for every passenger for every ride,” he said. “The goal is to have a visible presence so that people more often than not will see security or will have their tickets checked.”
The Lynx Blue Line has open platforms, meaning there are no turnstiles to keep non-ticketed passengers from getting on the train.
A ticket is required, but riders are rarely asked to show one. While speaking to the media after the MTC meeting, Cagle said he didn’t know how many citations CATS had issued recently for people riding without a ticket.
He said the increased use of people buying tickets on their phones makes it even more difficult to do fare enforcement. In the past, CATS staff could see who didn’t buy a ticket from the vending machines on the platform.
Cagle said the killing — and the new focus on fare enforcement — make it important to start requiring passengers on the Gold Line streetcar to pay. The four-mile streetcar is currently free.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Cornelius Mayor Woody Washam said he is concerned about how the killing might affect the November referendum on whether to increase the sales tax by 1 cent to pay for a new roads and transit plan.
Washam expressed condolences to Zarutska’s family and said people in north Mecklenburg are concerned about safety.
“I think it’s going to be difficult, I really do,” he said. “There’s just a lot of chatter out there. It’s sad that it relates to the fact we have a vote coming in November about transit tax. It brings on some negatives in relation to the rail services and all that overall.”
The plan would build the Red Line commuter train to Cornelius and other north Mecklenburg towns. It would also expand local bus service, pay for road improvements and create a new transit authority to run the system.
If voters approve, Mecklenburg County's sales taxes would rise to 8.25%.
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