Just when Jim Graham does something to make us mad, he comes back and does something good. As part of a pilot program sponsored by the Ward 1 council member, there is now a crime camera outside the 13th and U entrance of the U Street Metro, which the station managers will monitor. Interestingly, Graham opposed a similar camera in Adams Morgan.

While there are legitimate reasons for discomfort with the overall crime camera program, I personally think this is a fantastic idea, both because there has been high-profile crime near this particular Metro entrance, like the murder at 12th and U in December, and because cameras near public transit entrances have far fewer privacy concerns than ones at random residential intersections. But I have another reason, too — my own personal experience — because I was jumped by a group of teens in December just down the street from the Shaw Metro’s 8th & R exit. Thankfully nothing was stolen and the Metro Transit Police caught some of the kids, but those two stations have had a lot of crime recently — there have been 3 murders right outside the 8th Street exit of the Shaw Metro in the past year, as well as numerous incidents similar to mine. In fact, many Shaw bloggers and residents have been wondering why there’s so little major media coverage of the recent crime spike in Shaw.

I hope there’s a similar camera installed at Shaw as soon as possible. It’s very frustrating not to use the Metro station closest to my home because of safety concerns. After all, what good is a Metro station if people won’t use it? These cameras at other stations could do wonders for safety around the Metro, one area where people both expect to be safe and have fewer expectations of privacy.

U Street escalator photo by katmere