The Environment - Transit Crime Connection:
Continuing Study of the Metro Green Line and its Vicinity
Principal Investigator:
Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris
Department of Urban Planning
School of Public Policy and Social Research
3250 Public Policy Building, Box 951467
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1467
tel. 310-206-9679
Fax 310-206-5566
Funded by a UCTC Year 13 Research Grant
Overview of the research and tasks
The implementation of new transit lines is some times dogged by concerns that such lines may increase crime rates in station neighborhoods. Affluent communities have often complained that transit lines transport crime to the suburbs. Most research on transit crime has focused on heavy rail systems and has examined the underground station environment. There is limited and inconclusive research on crime on and around surface and above-ground stations and very limited understanding of the "journey-to-crime" of potential offenders. We also do not clearly understand how new transit lines affect outlying suburban areas, and how surrounding environments affect station security.
This study focuses on the Green Line transit system in Los Angeles and examines its effects on crime in the adjacent areas. In an earlier work (with Year 12 UCTC funding) we have used the Green Line transit system in Los Angeles to examine the first part of the “transit crime-environment” equation. We have thus analyzed the effects of socio-demographic and physical characteristics of station neighborhoods on crime incidence at the station. The present study focuses on the examination of the effects of the Green Line on its adjacent areas. It investigates the possible crime influences of this inner city line on its outlying suburban areas.
The Green Line runs for 19.6 miles from Norwalk to the east) to El Segundo (to the west) in Los Angeles County. The line, which started operating in 1995, has fourteen stations and had a daily average ridership of 23,000 passengers in 2000. The Green Line light rail system passes through some high-crime inner city neighborhoods and terminates at its western end in affluent suburban communities. The study examines neighborhood level and municipality-wide crime trends for five years before and five years after the inception of the line.
Crime data was collected for six cities adjacent to the Green Line and surrounding 12 of the 14 stations (we were unable to get data for areas adjacent to the Lynwood station #3 and the Norwalk station #1). Crime data by type and location for 1990 through 1999 was obtained from the cities of Downey, Los Angeles (LAPD service areas in the vicinity of the station), Hawthorne, El Segundo, Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach. Data was geocoded and aggregated to the station neighborhood level (1/2 mile radius around each station) to generate a quarterly time series database for the ten-year period. In order to identify long-term trends, the crime series data sets were first adjusted for quarterly (seasonal) variation and then smoothed using three-month moving averages. Similarly crime trend data was created for the larger municipalities/LAPD service areas abutting the Green Line over the ten-year period. This allowed us to study crime trend changes by quarter during the 10-year period both at the station neighborhood level and larger municipality level. These trends were also compared to county crime trends during the same period. A piecewise regression model was developed to evaluate the impact of the opening of the line in the station neighborhoods. GIS analysis was also utilized to identify spatial shifts in crime hot spots for the municipalities abutting the Green Line.
Key Findings
At the end, the study establishes that the transit line has not had significant impacts on crime trends or crime dislocation in the station neighborhoods, and has not transported crime from the inner city to the suburbs. We found no evidence that this transit line has opened up new and outlying territories for exploitation by potential criminals. Overall, most station neighborhoods have either experienced no change or have witnessed a reduction in crime after the introduction of the Green Line. Transit has certainly not brought more crime to the affluent suburban areas, which have continued to enjoy relatively higher levels of safety and prosperity than the county average. Some crime increase was witnessed in the inner city, where limited spill-over effects of crime from more high-crime to less crime ridden areas were observed. However, major shifts and dislocation of crime have not occurred within the municipalities that surround the Green Line. We were also unable to notice a relationship between hot spots of crime and proximity to a transit station. Rather the existence of hot spots could be better explained by the presence of certain land uses (e.g. concentration of retail along a busy commercial street, existence of a high school or a public housing development). It seems clear that criminals have not used the Green Line to access potential targets, miles away. The journey to crime has not become easier because of the Green Line.
References
R. Liggett, A. Loukaitou-Sideris, and H. Iseki, “Journeys to Crime: Assessing the Effects of a Light Rail Line on Crime in the Neighborhoods,” submitted to the Journal of Public Transportation.
Other Accomplishments:
Grant from the Haynes Foundation to continue work on the environmental attributes of railway crime
Acknowledgement
Professor Robin Liggett was a key research participant. UCLA graduate students Hiroyuki Iseki, Rieko Matsumara, Efrain Garibay, and Lisa Schiller helped at different stages of the research with the fieldwork and input of the data.