By all accounts, this should be a good time for SEPTA. Thanks in part to rising gas prices, ridership is going up. The public transit agency is actually talking about increasing service instead of raising fares. That's why it's distressing to see another story about someone being attacked and robbed while riding the subway. A woman named Tyesha Tazwell was beat up yesterday on her way home. From the Daily News:
Police said she was attacked near an underground concourse between SEPTA's underground lines and the Gallery mall at 8th and Market streets Wednesday night - exactly one week after Starbucks manager Sean Patrick Conroy died after being beaten by six teens on a SEPTA concourse just five blocks away.
Given all the attention being given to public safety and public transit, I thought I'd take a look at exactly how much money SEPTA spends on police officers. You can find the information in SEPTA's annual operating budget. It's available for download from their website by clicking here.
SEPTA spends $14.9 million to employ 260 transit police every year. Does that seem like enough? According to statistics about ridership from the SEPTA website, there are 83,500 trips made by people everyday. That means the ratio of police officer to people using the system at any given time is about 1 for every 321. In comparison, the Philadelphia Police Department has one officer for every 219 people in the city.
My first instinct is that SEPTA needs to hire more police. Of course, that would be pretty expensive-- the average cost of each officer is a little more than $57,000. There may be other, cheaper, ways to deal with this issue. For example, the installation of more security cameras might be a good deterrent against crime. It's important to remember that even cameras have a cost beyond simply purchasing and installation. You have to hire someone who can watch the live feeds and call the police if something doesn't look right.
People will not continue to use SEPTA if they do not feel safe. These attacks provide an opportunity to talk about how Our Money can best be spent to improve security for passengers.
Comments (1)
Hey, thanks for the article.Thanks Again.
Posted by Rayna Fultz | December 10, 2011 9:28 PM