Tracking crime stats at park and rides

You may remember when Metro OK'd a $20 million surveillance system covering all its park and ride facilities and one transit center, an attempt to fight crime at the locations. But, you may ask yourself, how much crime actually happens at park and rides? Well, thanks to KTRK's Crime Tracker, we have an idea.

According to Metro, 119 crimes have occurred at park and rides so far this year; though most of the crimes weren't violent, the crime rate is increasing, which led Channel 13 to trot out its amazing Crime Tracker to analyze the statistics. The Tracker looked at the five park and ride lots with the most crime, and it looks like there is quite a bit going on — especially in auto burglaries. At the West Bellfort park and ride, there were six car break-ins and one car theft between January and August this year; at Bay Area, three break-ins and five thefts; at Kuykendahl, five break-ins and six thefts; at North Shepherd, 13 break-ins; and in Spring, the most crime-ridden park and ride saw 24 break-ins and one theft so far this year. (The remainder of the crimes were a handful of minor assaults, vandalism and narcotics cases sprinkled among the five lots.)

Those crimes are what the 250 security cameras will be on the lookout for. They'll be able to sweep the park and ride facilities and, using special software, can be "trained" to search for specific threats. Cameras aren't the only part of the $20 million security package: 150 security gates and more than a hundred security phones will also be installed at Metro facilities.

The system should be fully installed early next year.