The Rhode Island Avenue, New Carrollton and Franconia-Springfield Metro stations are among the most crime-ridden in the system and top the list of stations that would benefit most from outdoor crime cameras, Metro Transit Police said Thursday.
The list, compiled by transit police at the request of Metro’s board of directors, identifies the 10 stations with the highest crime rates in each jurisdiction that are able to accommodate cameras at station entrances.
High-volume, end-of-the line stations topped the list in Virginia and Maryland, while several stations near the Maryland border ranked high in the District.
Currently, the west entrance at the U Street/Cardozo station is the only one in the system with a crime camera.
That one was installed in November 2006 as part of a pilot program sponsored by D.C. Councilman Jim Graham in an effort to curb the crime rate in the area.
“A year later, we have witnessed a 32-34 percent reduction in crime at that particular station,” Metro Transit Police Chief Michael Taborn said.
There were 80 reported crimes, including four serious ones such as robberies, at the U Street station between Jan. 25, 2006, and Jan. 25, 2007, officials said.
That number dropped to 56 the following year, with three serious crimes reported.
Officials are installing a Metro-funded camera outside the Anacostia station.
That station saw 40 serious crimes in 2007 — the most of any District station — and was the site of a shoot-out last month that injured a Metrobus driver who was standing on the curb.
The District has allocated $200,000 this year to install cameras at its highest-crime stations, which would buy the city 16 of the $12,000 camera systems.
Metro will begin installing the cameras in the fall, Taborn said.
While the camera at the U Street station entrance is linked only to the station manager’s kiosk, Metro is going to begin tying the external feeds to its police communications center, he said.
Transit police do not have enough staff to monitor all the cameras continuously, but the feeds will allow them to target stations if they are experiencing a rash of crime, Taborn said.
Metro has 1,041 internal cameras, many of them also linked to the D.C. police command center.
