St. Cloud Metro Bus Earns State Bronze Award For Workplace Safety

(KNSI) – St. Cloud’s public transit agency has been recognized by the state for keeping its own employees out of harm’s way.

Metro Bus announced Wednesday it received the 2025 Governor’s Workplace Safety Bronze Award from the Minnesota Safety Council. The council presented this year’s winners in May at the annual Minnesota Safety and Health Conference. The awards recognize Minnesota employers for excellence in protecting workers from injuries, illnesses and other workplace incidents.

The Bronze Award goes to organizations with an incidence rate better than the 50th percentile of either the state or national average for their industry. Incidence rate is a standard measure of recordable injuries and illnesses relative to the hours a workforce puts in, which allows a 160-employee transit agency to be compared against much larger and much smaller operations.

Despite the name, the award reflects Metro Bus’s safety performance during calendar year 2025. Applications for that year were due to the council in February and required three years of injury and illness data along with a scorecard evaluating the employer’s overall safety program.

The plaque was presented during a recent Metro Bus Board of Commissioners meeting. Training and Safety Manager Scott Stark accepted it alongside Chief Executive Officer Ryan I. Daniel, Chief Financial Officer Nene Israel, Chief Operating Officer David Green and Board members Kurt Hunstiger, Ryan Fitzthum, Dave Masters, Ken Schmitt and Dave Kleis.

Metro Bus runs 17 year-round fixed routes with a fleet of 42 buses, plus 33 Dial-a-Ride vehicles serving riders with disabilities, across St. Cloud, Sartell, Sauk Rapids and Waite Park. The agency operates seven days a week on a fiscal year 2025 operating budget of $23.5 million.

The safety award caps a busy stretch for the agency. Metro Bus broke ground on a new transit facility in May, secured a $14 million Federal Transit Administration grant last November, and saw Dial-a-Ride operator David Peacock take first place in the Small Bus Division at this month’s Minnesota Public Transit Association State Bus Roadeo.

Metro Bus was created by the Minnesota Legislature in 1969 and operates as the St. Cloud Metropolitan Transit Commission.

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