Following some recent high-profile violence on Metro trains--a fatal stabbing on the Red Line in Hollywood and a non-fatal stabbing on the Gold Line in Pasadena--the transit agency has released stats on crime on their buses and trains. This is the first time Metro's published the info online. The interesting thing is that those two crimes happened on the safest rail lines in the system. For anyone who regularly rides public transit, it's not a huge surprise that the buses and the Blue and Green Lines are the most dangerous, with more recorded "part one crimes" (which include homicide, rape/attempted rape, assault, robbery, burglary, grand theft, and petty thefts) than on the Red and Purple Line subways (information on the subways is combined), the Gold Line, or the Orange Line busway in the Valley.
The Source's Steve Hymon notes that many Blue Line crimes consist of people stealing electronics or jewelry from other riders, while the Green Line sees many crimes in its vast park-and-ride lots. As far as comparing these stats to other transit systems, LA's is quite safe, only slightly more dangerous than Boston's. DC's transit system sees three times as many serious crimes as LA's does, and Dallas's nascent rapid transit system is five times more crime-ridden than LA's.
· Statistics on Metro Buses and Trains [The Source]
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