The armed security guards who walk alongside the Muni workers collecting cash from buses, transit-sales desks and fare machines will be giving up their handguns if San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim has her way.
Kim wants to revise the Municipal Transportation Agency’s proposed six-year, $38.3 million contract with Cypress Security, eliminating the armed guards the transit agency has used for decades.
“Small businesses handle cash every day without security guards, so why does the MTA need them?” Kim asked when the contract came up for approval at last week’s Board of Supervisors meeting. “I’m troubled that we have armed guards at the MTA.”
The vote on the contract was put off so the supervisors could collect more information about how armed guards are used by Muni and other transit agencies.
Eliminating the armed guards would save the city about $1 million over the length of the contract, Kim said, as well as protect citizens from the consequences of a gunfight that could occur on a crowded public street.
“It would be better to give the cash to an armed robber so we don’t have a shooting,” Kim said. “I can’t support having more guns on the street than we have to.”
Transit officials argue that armed guards are necessary.
Unarmed guards “couldn’t defend themselves or those in their care from a person with a firearm,” transit officials said in a statement.
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