A brawl involving 100 to 150 people shut down Portland’s eastside light-rail line last Friday night. This naturally raises the question, “What is the relationship between light rail and crime?” Portlanders are beginning to wonder as one part of the city, informally known as Felony Flats, is suffering a crime wave.
Felony Flats is in southeast Portland near the 162nd Avenue Station on the Gresham-to-Portland light-rail line. It is reputed to have the city’s “highest density of drug labs and ex-convict residents.”
