The Metropolitan Branch Trail, an 8-mile route between Union Station and Silver Spring, has become a popular one for cyclists. Recently, though, several assaults and robberies reported along the Trail have exposed the frailties of law enforcement.
The most recent incident involved two teens who attempted to subdue a cyclist with a taser near Rhode Island Avenue. And while the biker was able to get away without injury, it’s lit a fire under the online community.
Police have only recently getting the right tools to fight crime along the trail — according to Greater Greater Washington’s David Alpert, MPD has only recently been able to accurately respond to crimes reported on the MBT:
I wrote about this issue almost a year ago when it similarly arose on the listserv after another failed attack on the trail. The DC 911/311 system, run by the Office of Unified Communications, requires a specific address or intersection to take a report, so dispatchers end up delaying with frustrated callers when incidents take place in areas without obvious addresses or cross streets.
The simple solution is to make the Metropolitan Branch Trail a “road” in the system, so that dispatchers can simply enter it. DDOT officials said a year ago that they had given the necessary geographic data layers to OUC and MPD to incorporate into the system, but it took a long time to load. I emailed DDOT and MPD officials about progress, and bike program head Jim Sebastian passed the question on to OCTO. They replied that the trail is now in the system.
Yes, that should help.
But the issues hardly end with police knowing where to respond. There are long stretches of the trail that are poorly lit. There’s the occasional poor reaction from officers after a crime is reported. And, of course, there’s the strain that patrolling a long stretch of trail can pose on the District’s police force. But hopefully, community based safety initiatives, combined with an href=”http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/crime-scene/post/patrols-on-dc-trail-stepped-up-after-attacks/2011/06/06/AG8yNAKH_blog.html”>dedicated increase in patrols, will help keep the Trail safe.
