An assault by five teenagers on a North Portland MAX train this week revived worries about mass transit safety since several high-profile incidents last winter.

Teenage boys and girls punched, used racial epithets and stole the purse of a 28-year-old Vancouver woman who was taking her first-ever MAX ride early Monday evening. The woman, who is white, had just had a conversation with the teens, who are African American and were harassing another woman, according to Portland police.

"It was completely traumatizing and absolutely horrifying for me," said the Vancouver woman, who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation. "It seemed like forever."

The attack renewed calls for more security on the region's light-rail system. And it raised warnings that the close of the school year this week could be the beginning of a summer of criminal activity by some teenagers.

News of the woman's assault on the MAX Yellow Line, on North Interstate Avenue, triggered quick association with a November attack at a Gresham MAX stop that sparked regionwide outrage. A 16-year-old boy on Thursday was sentenced to 91/2 years in prison for that attack, in which he used a baseball bat to bludgeon a man, then 71.

Weeks after the beating, a 19-year-old man was stabbed in the chest at the Rockwood Transit Center, and on Christmas Eve a woman was groped at a MAX stop in Gresham.

The timing couldn't be worse. Motorists in Portland and nationwide are turning to mass transit in record numbers -- May ridership was up more than 4 percent -- to avoid high gas prices. And with two new rail services under construction -- and extensions to Vancouver and Milwaukie in the planning stages -- fear of crime threatens to stymie rail expansion.

Sam Schwarz, vice president of the Amalgamated Transit Union chapter that represents TriMet drivers, said the agency needs to hire more fare inspectors and supervisors who enforce rules of conduct on trains and buses.

"By enforcing the law and the TriMet codes, they would probably reduce the incidents," Schwarz said. "The drivers and the transit workers don't feel 100 percent safe."

TriMet employees usually suffer more harassment from teens during summer, Schwarz said.

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