Metro puts the brakes on Park and Ride crime

06:35 PM CDT on Friday, June 24, 2005

By Jason Whitely / 11 News

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Earlier this year, 11 News reported that Metro Park and Ride lots had become an easy target for criminals. Cars were vandalized, things were stolen and Metro took a lot of heat for a lack of security.

KHOU

After several break-ins in April, Metro added more security patrols at Park and Ride lots.

Now the transit agency tells us its plan to pull out all the stops to catch criminals has made the lots a lot safer.

It was April in the Addicks Park and Ride lot, when thieves went on a rampage smashing windows and breaking in to 15 vehicles.

"There's no security here. Even though there's a building here. There's never anyone in it," complained Park and Ride customer Paula Keith after someone broke into her car.

It was publicity Metro could have done without. At the first of the year, it stopped staffing the security booths in its Park and Ride lots. Crime shot up.

But numbers we discovered Friday show Metro got the message. In April, 43 crimes were reported at its Park and Ride lots. A month later in May, only five. That's a drop of almost 90-percent.

Metro reports nine reported incidents so far this month -- still down substantially from the crime spree in April.

"We're not gonna rest on these numbers. In a perfect world, we'd like to have nothing occur on our Park and Ride lots" said Metro Police Chief Tom Lambert.

Metro credits a task force of 18 officers that were reassigned to the Park and Ride lots.

They arrested five people, believed to be responsible for many of the break-ins.

"The arrests we made in Addicks. Those individuals were not only breaking in our cars, they also broke in to about 50 other cars in the community," said Lambert.

In Houston, 22,000 commuters use Park and Rides every day.

Metro tells us ridership hasn't dropped, while crime has.