Transportation
The Myth of the Commuting Criminal
Research has repeatedly shown that crime doesn't necessarily accompany transit, but that lingering fear still threatens new transportation projects.
In the fears of many, criminals ride transit. Therefore, if a new train or bus stop comes to your neighborhood, you can expect soon afterward an upsurge in unsavory types and the danger that comes with them. Transit has long provoked these twin fears: that, on the one hand, criminals use it to gain access to new neighborhoods (and cars and purses and apartments), while on the other hand transit stations create handy new hotspots of waiting victims.
Derek Paulsen has heard variations on this argument many times, particularly in community meetings. “When it comes to that visceral association of fear,” he says, “you’re arguing a fact against an emotion.”