Letter: Study — Few places as crime-free as bike trails

Posted 10/24/18

To the editor:

From all of us at Bike Tiverton, thank you for your timely and thoughtful editorial this week (“Greenway crime scare is a crock”). 

As we work to promote the Mt. Hope Bay …

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Letter: Study — Few places as crime-free as bike trails

Posted

To the editor:

From all of us at Bike Tiverton, thank you for your timely and thoughtful editorial this week (“Greenway crime scare is a crock”). 

As we work to promote the Mt. Hope Bay Greenway, the biggest obstacles we run up against are citizen concerns about crime, cost, and privacy. Not surprisingly, we hear this most frequently from potential trail abutters.

As you indicated, however, the notion that bike paths usher in a new wave of crime is unfounded. One has only to look at the East Bay Bike Path experience. In fact, numerous studies have demonstrated that converting a derelict rail corridor into a well-maintained, well-traveled bicycle/pedestrian pathway actually discourages crime. 

The largest survey of trails to date*, published by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, analyzing the experience at 372 different trails around the country, serving more than 45 million users, found that only 3-4% of trails reported any major or minor crimes, with crimes on rural and suburban trails essentially negligible. Furthermore, interviews with local law enforcement consistently found that regular trail usage tended to act as a deterrent to crime rather than an inducement for it. In point of fact, living on or near a trail proves to be safer than living adjacent to streets, parking lots, or shopping malls. 

The bottom line is that while there will always be holdouts who oppose trail development, citing fears of increased crime, loss of privacy, and/or prohibitive cost to the municipality, the advantages of trails in terms of improved health, enhanced safety, expanded recreational opportunity, social cohesion, environmental stewardship, and economic benefits far outweighs any potential downsides. The promise of the Mt. Hope Bay Greenway is something we should all be embracing, not dismissing!

*Tracy, Tammy and Morris, Hugh. “Rail-Trails and Safe Communities; the experience on 372 trails.” Rep. Jan. 1998. Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. 8 Jan. 2009, (http://www.railstotrails.org/resources/documents/resource_docs/tgc_safecomm.pdf).

Harton S. Smith

Administrator, Bike Tiverton

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