When the Washington Examiner story came out two weeks ago, describing how the completion of the Silver Line metro would turn Tysons into New Jack City, I had hoped that the sensible media in our region would question the legitimacy of the claims. I had hoped that at a minimum the story wouldn’t be passed along from source to source as if it was established fact. Let’s get some facts out there.
The article in question is this one from the Examiner. It uses a former police chief, who is not a statistician or public policy maker, to take a position that metro means more crime. It is making the age old assertion that is as old as the metro itself; when you bring the train out to the suburbs, urban criminals will come and rob us. This might sound like a joke to you, but it was a serious consideration in the 1970s as Northern Virginia transit expanded into the WMATA system. This same mentality remains for many of our more xenophobic regions (or atleast some of their constituents). The fact is that nothing like what was stated as scare tactics in the 70s and 80s happened.
People want to bring up areas like Huntington and Springfield/Franconia as proof that it has. Those areas have seen increased crime arising from reduced patrols and county investment, not from transients coming off of metro. The recent car theft at Kingstown was immediately jumped on by those in the above mind set as proof that metro brings criminals. I would argue that the Kingstown case is proof that if you are trying to be a criminal using metro, then you are far more likely to be caught. High density areas mean high density passive surveillance, more cameras, more people, and more cops. Any criminal stupid enough to try to rob, steal, or attack in an area like this will be off the streets quickly.
More importantly these stories are cherry picked. For every metro station related crime (of which there are only 15 to 20 per year total) there are dozens of stories from areas not near any metro access where crime is occurring as well. A murder in Reston of a woman and unborn child recently occurred… was that related to metro? Or how about the dozen or so petty thefts that happen monthly at Tysons… are these practice runs? How about the increasing crime in Leesburg, a town which has all but spurned any multi-family development or transit?
The true measure of whether crime occurs in one place or another should be the incidence rate and probability of any individual being the victim of a crime, not the total number of crimes. For example, if a strip mall in Staunton sees 1 robbery per month, while Rosslyn sees 5 robberies per month one might initially jump to the conclusion that Rosslyn is far more rampant with crime than the rural strip mall. However, if you also consider that the Staunton strip mall sees only 500 people per month, while Rosslyn shuffles 3.5 million persons per month… then you would see that the Rosslyn area would be far less prevalent of a crime zone.
That is the only true measure of crime.
Metro Stations seeing tens of thousands of commuters every day. The fact that there are only 10-20 crimes per year at these stations is testament to the active nature of patrols, surveillance, and poor criminal atmosphere of the stations. Can crimes happen? Yes of course, crime can happen anywhere, but you are far less likely given typical conditions at Vienna metro to be robbed than at many parts of our area.
Here is the part I agree with though. Tysons does need a new police station. It has nothing to do with metro though.
When areas grow they create more and more visits and residents. Tysons Corner mall is already the focal point for McLean police because over 1 million people visit the mall per month. By comparison there are only about 75,000 residents in the areas around the mall that are patrolled by police, so a similar amount of population generations over the course of the month. With the continued growth of both retail and residential populations in Tysons, will be a continued growth in how many people are in and around the city. You can’t expect a police officer who is in charge of observing 30,000 people per month (1000 per day), to now be in charge of observing and protecting 100,000 people per month (3300 per day). You have to locate police in a way that their presence can both protect from crimes and deter crimes from ever occurring. Maintaining our current levels for “number of officers per 1000 people trips” can help ensure that today’s safe neighborhoods don’t become tomorrow’s un-patrolled criminal havens.
I should reiterate, this has nothing to do with the metro. This has nothing to do with demographic make up of Tysons. It has nothing to do with urban vs suburban development. If you increase the number of people in an area (either shoppers, office workers, or residents) then you have to increase the number of police that protect them, and the plan is that Tysons will be growing.
That being said, creating a brand new police station, while segmenting the McLean station to only provide service to McLean is wasteful and makes no sense. McLean Police District has a population of 75,000. The current police station is in charge of not only a zone which has a resident population, but also the large destination shopping area of Tysons with its comparable daily population of 30,000, and the office areas of Tysons with a daily population of 115,000 (of which clearly there could be some overlap).
The point is that the McLean Police station has been keeping up with the current demands with their 132 sworn officers. This number of officers is pretty close to the amount necessary for this population, as is evident by the relative safety that remains in McLean/Tysons. That is more police than Fair Oaks District[113], Mason[129], Sully[111], and Mount Vernon[126] (all with larger resident populations). It is almost the same as Reston[137], Franconia[140], and West Springfield[135] which also all have larger resident populations.
Could a few more officers be added to bolster safety? Sure, but isn’t that always the case with all of the districts? With such a small residential population in McLean the 132 officers would far exceed the per capita allotment of other districts. Reducing the patrol area to only McLean would leave the station with far too many police than are necessary. The fact that the station is currently undergoing an expansion is only further indication that it wouldn’t make sense to deprecate it from patrol of Tysons at this time.
Tysons is a 40-year development project. We have already established that metro coming on line will have absolutely no impact to crime in McLean/Tysons. There is no correlation. So the remaining issue becomes Tysons growing population. However, that is not going to suddenly spike to 100,000 people. As each development comes on line, within their increased tax assessments and overall county real estate payments, is money that will be made more than amply available to police/fire&rescue. There is no rush to suddenly freak out and think that we need a new police station immediately. As the population grows with the development, monies will become available to invest in a central Tysons police station.
Until that time, unless McLean wants to build a separate police station, smaller and more realistic for their own needs with local town funds, I suggest they stop playing scare tactics and scapegoating smart growth developments.