Friday, May 15, 2009

Metro's Most "Dangerous" Stations

Since WMATA is installing a lot of surveillance cameras, employs 420 sworn police officers, 106 security special police, and 24 civilian personnel and has stationed this behemoth at various stations, we were curious about crime stats on Metro.
The idea of this posting seemed simple enough: to tabulate the stations where you’re most likely to be the victim of a crime. Well, like most things, Metro doesn’t make it easy.
They publish their stats in a different format each year, covering different time spans and reporting the crimes in detail sometimes and sometimes not. Still, if you’re willing to weed through, you can make some sense of it.
Metro-wide, your chances of being a victim of a “part 1” crime is, according to Metro, “2.27 per million customers.” That's pretty low.
Part 1 crimes are violent and property crimes such as aggravated assault, rape, murder, robbery, arson, burglary, larceny-theft and motor vehicle theft, according to Wikipedia. They do not include such things as simple assault, disorderly conduct, drug offenses, public drunkenness, sex offenses, stolen property, vandalism and weapons offenses.
Metro could not provide us with complete list of 2008 crime, but here are the "worst" stations for the period of Jan.-July 2008, with the number of part 1 crimes reported at each.

1. New Carrollton (44)
2. Largo Town Center (38)
3. Vienna (36)
4. College Park (33)
5. Addison Road (32)
6. Suitland (30)
7. Southern Avenue (30)
8. Gallery Place (25)
9. Greenbelt (25)
10. Franconia-Springfield (25)

In 2007, they broke down the stats nicely.

The 2007 Top Ten:

1. New Carrollton (100)
2. Franconia Springfield (86)
3. Suitland (70)
4. Greenbelt (58)
5. Largo Town Center (50)
6. Branch Ave. (45)
7. Addison Rd. (43)
8. Vienna (43)
9. Anacostia (40)
10. College Park (40)

Other news:
-Credit card payments, cell phone coverage and wholesale electricity from WaPo
-Deputy Mayor Neil Albert's stimulus priorities include infrastructure for mixed-used development by Mid-Ctiy Urban at Rhode Island Avenue Metrorail station. (WBJ)

Photo: WMATA

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

College Park? Really? I've *never* felt unsafe there.

I use both CP and Rhode Island Avenue frequently and frankly, would say that Rhode Island Avenue is much more dangerous.

Golden Silence said...

Add me to the list of thinking Rhode Island is a hideous and unsafe Metro station. I dread using it in the mornings and am considering an alternative way to get to work.

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