Tucson council adds bus ambassadors to $2 million bus safety plan

By Hannah Cree | Arizona Daily Star (TNS)

TUCSON, ARIZ. — The city plans to spend over $2 million on transit ambassadors, security infrastructure and other safety improvements on the public transportation system over the next year as a potential transit worker strike is reigniting conversations about bus safety in Tucson.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the Tucson City Council approved how it will spend the first year of transit safety tax dollars from the recently approved RTA Next plan. The half-cent sales tax passed in March includes $43 million designated specifically for transit safety over the next 20 years, with a total of $2.15 million slated for this year.

The biggest line items include $700,000 for eight part-time police officers, and nearly $375,000 to expand the transit ambassador program, a program that deploys outreach teams along major routes and stops to address behavioral and welfare issues, provide service referrals, and offer support to drivers.

Mayor Regina Romero also said she was disappointed in the city’s contracted private security, and amended the plan to move more money towards the ambassador program instead.

“I do not feel they have fulfilled their responsibility. I have much more faith in the deployments that our police officers were doing, and into investing additional funds for operator safety,” Romero said.

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The city originally proposed hiring four ambassadors called community safety navigators at $24 an hour, but the council did not specify how many additional ambassadors will be funded by shifting money away from private security.

The program will build upon a pilot previously run by the nonprofit Primavera Foundation, city leaders said. Over an eight-month period in 2025, outreach workers made referrals for 263 people in the SunTran system, according to an Oct. 8, 2025 city memo.

Just a few days before Tuesday's meeting, 99% of the Teamsters Local 104 Union voted to authorize a strike weeks before their collective bargaining agreement is set to expire. A representative for SunTran told the Star the company is exploring all options to avoid a disruption to service, and is optimistic a deal could be reached by the June 30 deadline.

City leadership can’t be involved in union negotiations, and Romero said she doesn’t know whether the potential strike is directly related to transit safety. She said the city has been in discussions with union leaders since the development of the Transit Safety and Security Action Plan, passed in December, before any strike was on the table.

“Absolutely agree, there's issues, and we are actively working on those issues. If their idea is for us to charge fares, then that's a different conversation,” Romero said.

Other safety investments and budget controversies

The council was largely in agreement over the importance of immediate interventions for operator and driver safety. The City Council discussion and the Teamsters' vote took place just days after a stabbing on a SunTran Bus, which was condemned by city leaders.

Another $220,000 is slated for environmental design changes at bus stops, including lighting, landscaping, signage, deterrent rocks and sleeping benches.

Tucson will also purchase four more cameras to monitor high-traffic areas. The city is also considering a pilot program with the eventual goal of connecting video surveillance on buses to the Community Safety Awareness and Response Center, a hub where the Tucson Police Department monitors cameras and crime data, according to a June 9 memo.

Councilmember Miranda Schubert said the system lacks strong policies on how to deal with repeat offenders, like expulsion practices and how drivers can prevent problem riders from boarding.

“Those are really important to tackle before we go into … tracking people or charging money or trying to exclude people from a system when literally 99.9% of them are normal, regular everyday people,” she said. “This is not a bus or a transit issue. This is an issue of social problems becoming more visible in public spaces,” she said.

Councilmember Nikki Lee expressed concern that the $25,000 marked for physical barriers in the buses themselves was not enough.

“I feel like there's a disconnect in what bus and transit operators feel is an adequate barrier for their safety versus what exists today, which is more like a sneeze guard in a buffet,” Lee said.

The Department of Transportation and Mobility will test several different types of barrier safety systems over the next year before selecting one to roll into the entire bus fleet, said Deputy Director Andy Bemis at the meeting.

Lee and Councilmember Paul Cunningham voted against the transit safety budget plan, and both renewed previous calls to bring back fares on the bus system.

“I’ve also made very clear that I believe that the best avenue to have a transit … safety plan is to have some semblance of a pass where you can get onto the bus and use it,” Cunningham said.

Lee was also the only member to vote against the city’s $2.5 billion budget later at Tuesday’s meeting over similar concerns the city is subsidizing too much of its limited general fund dollars.

“My hope is that when we're sitting here a year from now, we can point to measurable progress in reducing the general fund dependency and establishing a long-term funding strategy for transit,” she said.

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