Journeys to Crime: Assessing the Effects of a Light Rail Line on Crime in the Neighborhoods

Robin Liggett, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Hiroyuki Iseki

University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers from University of California Transportation Center

Abstract: 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. This study focuses on the Green Line transit system in Los Angeles and examines its effects on crime in the adjacent areas. 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. A piecewise regression model is developed to evaluate the impact of the opening of the line in the station neighborhoods. GIS analysis is also utilized to identify spatial shifts in crime hot spots for municipalities abutting the Green Line. 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.

Keywords: Social; and; Behavioral; Sciences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003-03-01
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/2tq8b34w.pdf;origin=repeccitec (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cdl:uctcwp:qt2tq8b34w

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers from University of California Transportation Center Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lisa Schiff ().