Quote:
Originally Posted by 202_Cyclist
The dim lighting might be magical but it is also a very real public safety concern. Many people, especially women, won't ride metro at night because of the extremely poor lighting in many of the stations. We have an infant son and the lighting is even worse in the parts of the stations adjacent to the elevators.
To paraphrase someone from Amtrak who was quoted in a recent Wall Street Journal article, WMATA is responsible for operating a modern, efficient, transit system, not a museum. When the lack of light in the stations drives passengers away to passenger vehicles, this is a legitimate issue.
Additionally, there is no reason the newer stations that have no historical significance like Wiehle Ave or New Carrollton can't be well-lit.
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But is there actually a safety issue in the stations that can be shown empirically, or is it just that people assume dim = crime? As I mentioned above, the stations do far more than any other American transit system,
architecturally, to create defensible space - full faregate control, clear sightlines from the attendant booth to almost every part of the station, wide corridors, radiused corners, etc. Has crime decreased around the stations that now have brighter lighting?
Also, violent crime in Washington generally is at or near 30-year lows, and the Metro's ridership is at or near all-time highs, hurt only by reliability issues.... it would seem the lighting issue, if there is one, is a mere footnote in the overall trends driving both crime and ridership...