The law enforcement boost and other measures come after a man was shot and killed on a C Line bus in downtown Minneapolis last week, and following a fatal stabbing on the Blue Line light rail in January.
Muni already has a zero-emissions fleet of overhead-wire electric buses, streetcars, light rail vehicles, and cable cars; roughly half of its fleet of 1,200 vehicles emit pollutants. After studying alternative fuels as a condition of their last major diesel bus purchase in 2001, it began to add hybrid buses to its fleet in 2007. The agency eventually bought more to completely retire that diesel fleet last year. Its latest hybrids have a GPS-controlled engine that shuts off moving entirely on electric power in neighborhoods with high concentrations of low-income populations and poor air quality. Muni hopes someday to convert those hybrids into fully electric buses by simply removing the engine.