Add two more costs to the exhorbitant price of light-rail transit: crime, and the cost of preventing such crime. Portland’s TriMet transit agency is spending $560,000 dollars adding security cameras to five light-rail stations — that’s $112,000 per station.
“Crime activity,” says the Gresham police chief, “has increased in the areas along the platforms.” This is hardly news. A decade ago, the Milwaukie police chief told me that police throughout the Portland area knew that the opening of a light-rail station would be followed by an increase in property crime in the vicinity.
Add this to another pair of utopian planning ideas — urban-growth boundaries and transit-oriented development — and you have one more receipe for disaster. Portland’s urban-growth boundary drove up the price of single-family homes, so young families began to gentrify Portland’s low-income neighborhoods. This pushed Section 8 renters out of those neighborhoods, and many of them ended up in transit-oriented developments that yuppies avoided like the plague.
The result was an increase in both property and violent crime both near and on the light rail. I recently met a woman who lives right on the light-rail line to Portland. She told me she rides transit to work, but she prefers to take the bus over light rail because of all the thugs who ride the rail lines.
This is the opposite of the way it is supposed to be. According to social conservative (but fiscal liberal) Paul Weyrich, “People don’t want to ride buses.”
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By “people,” Weyrich means “people who have choices.” Buses are for those who are too poor, too young, too old, or too disabled to drive. Rail transit is for getting middle-class automobile owners out of their cars.
On October 27, 1997, the Oregonian reported a gang war over who was going to control drug traffic on the west side light-rail line that was then under construction. In 2002, the Portland Trubine noted that light rail had become a convenient place for drug trafficking.
There have also been many reports of violent crime on or near light-rail cars. Last October, when I was out of town and off the Internet for a few days, I logged on and received a flurry of emails about a radio report “that the guy who was stabbed at a Max station was named Randal O’Toole.” Fortunately for me, it turned out to be someone named Randall Toole.
These are not isolated examples. Crime data collected for the National Transit Database (but not published with that database) reveal that light-rail trains and station areas are subject to far more crime, per passenger mile, than any other form of transit. I’ve posted the 2002-2004 data on line, which show that light rail has about three times as many aggravated assaults than buses, about four times as many auto thefts from park-and-ride stations as heavy rail, and five times as many robberies as heavy rail. The only form of transit that comes close is trolley buses, which are only found in four or five cities, but light rail beats trolley buses in almost every category as well.
When light rail is on the ballot, its proponents somehow forget to mention that riders are more likely to be robbed, beaten, and stabbed than users of other transit modes. When people who have a choice discover this, they are going to keep driving.
Walmarts: also a magnet for crime.
http://www.walmartcrimereport.com/
Nice… uh, “rebuttal”.
According to this interactive map, residences have a high likelihood for crime too. Using Randal’s logic, when people who have a choice discover this, they are going to move to a non-residence.
Department stores are a magnet for crime too. Using Randal’s logic, when people who have a choice discover this, they are going to shop at a non-department store.
Taverns? Same thing. Using Randal’s logic, when people who have a choice discover this, they are going to drink in a non-bar.
DS
Using Randal’s logic, when people who have a choice discover this, they are going to shop at a non-retail store.
Huh.
Using Randal’s logic, when people who have a choice discover this, they are going to shop at a non-big-box store.
After all, folks know best.
DS
How is “yeah but Walmart stores attract crime” any kind of rebuttal to the claim that light rail stations attract crime? Do you just type the word “Walmart” when you’re out of arguments?
To “Rotten”
Where people congregate, there is crime. That’s the point. In Los Angeles, many of the highest crime residential areas are immediately adjacent to freeway on-ramps.
The holes in this argument are large enough to drive a Wal-Mart delivery truck through.
DS
As usual the planner misses the real world.
Crime at toy train stations frequently involve thugs preying on innocent transit users. And putting their victims in the hospital.
As mentioned above, crime at super stores is mostly property crimes against the store. Your chance of being physically hurt, as a customer is very small, unlike the situation on the toy train system.
Planners, of course, cannot tell the difference between these two situations.
As to avoiding superstores to avoid crime, I would like to see the statistics on a per customer basis before concluding that small stores are safer. (Of course planners don’t like statistics, because real data shows how wrong planners are about almost everything.)
Thanks
JK
For years, public reports have chronicled the terrible problem of crimes at Wal-Mart stores. Horrific reports of rape, murder, kidnappings, robbery and assault at Wal-Mart stores. For many police officials, the issue of crimes at Wal-Mart stores has been “overwhelming:â€Â
http://www.walmartcrimereport.com/crimereport.html
Instapundit had a piece on urban planning today. He found the key to invigorating a city’s downtown is to have lots of free parking!
As usual the planner misses the real world…Crime at toy train stations…the toy train system…Planners, of course, cannot tell the difference between these two situations…(Of course planners don’t like statistics, because real data shows how wrong planners are about almost everything.)
What does one feel after making such gross mischaracterizations and weak arguments? Pathetic? Small?
Or does one subsume such feelings in order to scrunch one’s eyes shut, muster all the willful ignroance one can muster and hope to score the tiniest perceived victory?
DS
I think Randal’s citation provides evidence that public spaces, be they Wal-Marts, shopping centers, light rail or other transit facilities, even planner-beloved public sports stadiums – take that planner dogs! – provide space for criminal activity and focal points for the shifting of criminal activity through space; a lot of crime is co-located with where the people are, which is DS’s point, I think. I would add, though, that crime at transit facilities has the added appeal to the criminal element of providing “quick” low-cost getaways for longer distance travel-to-crime, which does fly in the face of one of the major selling points of these facilities – that they will alleviate urban blight in certain areas and stimulate people to live, shop and work in or near these spaces that will somehow be more immune to criminal activity than other places.
I would bet that if you looked at crime statistics for most major urban cities and could get accurate x,y location data you would find clusters of criminal activity associated with retail establishments, especially clustered retail establishments (malls), but also along “restaurant rows” and near large public facilities like sports stadiums and transit stations. The question is whether overall crime rates change, or only the spatial location of the criminal activity.
I would like to hear a reasoned argument countering Jim Karlock’s point concerning property crime at retail establishments versus person on person crime surrounding light rail.
The Walmart argument is without merit (the link to the anti-Walmart website almost humorous, we’re smarter than that).
I sense the anti-planner’s point is light rail attracts greater crime than other transportation modes. Logical cases against that point would be appreciated if some disagree.
The Walmart argument is not without merit. Just Google “Walmart crime” and you’ll see why.
BTW: how are high crime rates against light rail passengers possible if, as we’re also told around here, so few people actually ride light rail in the first place? Unless the few passengers are repeat victims over and over, something seems amiss.
11 On June 13th, 2007, Dan said:
What does one feel after making such gross mischaracterizations and weak arguments? Pathetic? Small?
Or does one subsume such feelings in order to scrunch one’s eyes shut, muster all the willful ignroance one can muster and hope to score the tiniest perceived victory?
JK:
Sorry.
I should have provided some specifics for my claim:
Planners claim that high density reduces congestion. It doesn’t.
Planners claim that high density reduces commute times. It doesn’t.
Planners claim that high density reduces pollution. It doesn’t.
Planners claim that high density is cheaper. It isn’t.
Planners claim that mass transit saves energy. It doesn’t.
Planners claim that mass transit saves money. It doesn’t.
Planners claim that mass transit reduces pollution. It doesn’t.
Planners claim that automobiles are massive subsidized. They aren’t, transit is.
Planners claim that an artificial shortage of land doesn’t make housing un- affordable. They are wrong.
See http://www.portlandfacts.com/Smart/SmartGrowthLies.html
Thanks
JK
A well used public space will have few violent crimes. I don’t have statistics for this, but the best protection against violent crime is 1,000 eyes watching you. A woman will not get raped in the middle of a LRT platform crowded with strangers (pick-pocketed, sure, but not raped).
So, I would like to know when these crimes tend to occur. Is it during rush-hour when the system is well-used, or is it at night when a lonely hapless traveler is taken by surprise when no one else is looking?
The safest LRT system is one where lots of people use it.
Werdnagreb – good point – general crime stats lump all sorts of criminal activity together from violent crimes to petty thefts. My arguments above were directed mostly to the petty crimes of opportunity variety. A brief look at most urban crime statistics will indicate that these are the highest volume crimes. So, based upon the higher volumes of transit ridership on buses, the opportunities for crime are thereby lower. There are also more frequent stops for bus routes, presumably many at high foot traffic locations, and you are usually within shouting distance of the driver. Perhaps there is more crime on light rail due to a combination of low ridership, remote operators and a relatively captive group of isolated victims. This then spills over into the surrounding transit stations.
16 On June 13th, 2007, werdnagreb said: So, I would like to know when these crimes tend to occur. Is it during rush-hour when the system is well-used, or is it at night when a lonely hapless traveler is taken by surprise when no one else is looking?
JK: Just one data point, but a few weeks ago, some gangsters wandered through one LRT station at rush hour shooting.
Thanks
JK
Shootings happen at colleges too, during the middle of the day. I guess we should just eliminate any function that brings people together in large groups. It’s just too dangerous. Everyone needs to start bowling alone.
19 On June 14th, 2007, D4P said:
Shootings happen at colleges too, during the middle of the day. I guess we should just eliminate any function that brings people together in large groups. It’s just too dangerous. Everyone needs to start bowling alone.
John says:
If there are safer more effective ways to educate people for far less money then yes, we should eliminate college subsidies.