100% of the monies raised from the YC@MP campaign will be applied towards furnishings, equipment and fundraising costsfor the new youth centre. The campaign has been going very well and the community support has been amazing. Thank you to everyone who has donated thus far and, if you’d like to contribute, please visit our website. Jan Greenhow, Youth Centre @ Moody Park Fundraising Committee Co-Chair

Showing that per 100,000 passengers New West Station is actually safer also adds evidence to the argument the best tool to reduce crime is eyes on the street. You talked about evaluating statistics when it comes to crime in a post earlier this week, when taking how busy a station is in to account, there is clearly a correlation that the busier a station the safer you are.

And logically this make sense, you’re in a crowd, just like traveling herds of animals. You’re less likely to be picked off, and there’s more people around to defend you.

It also shows why from a safety perspective, not just a land planning one, development around rapid transit stations makes so much sense. As New West Station has built out, the drug and crime problems it used to be known for have evaporated. Contrarily, Surrey Central, which is also a VERY busy station still maintains crime issues because there isn’t development within the immediate vicinity of the station. Sure you have SFU Surrey and the mall, but those are across a parking lot and only open during daytime hours. The station becomes a very lonely and dark place at night.

Then there’s the issue of what you define as a crime at the Skytrain Station. I know some managers at Translink lament the media reporting crimes as being “at” a Skytrain station despite being 2-3 blocks away and completely unrelated to the transit system. Rapid transit stations don’t bring crime to a community, your community makeup does, do you have a cohesive community with eyes on the street, a strong blockwatch program and similar crime deterrents. I’ve never seen any stats that show increased crime levels in the neighbourhoods around Skytrain stations on a PER CAPITA basis (raw stats are a false measure since rapid transit stations DO tend to have a higher density around them).

As for the drug stats, cannabis possession? Come on, those count, really? I can honestly say I’ve never tried the stuff myself (yes, hard to believe for a Green Party candidate, unless you count the Snoop Dogg concert years ago where the clouds floating around GM Place were so thick a second-hand smoke high is a definite possibility), but really? The green bars on that graph should definitely be ignored when looking at it.

Let’s not forget Hyack Trophies on 12th for all your trophy, medals, and name badges. Brad is a great community supporter!

The Village Coffee Lounge on 12th is the place for a great coffee and sweet!

I’ve been very happy with the product and service at the Benjamin Moore Paint Store on 12th.

Cadeaux on East Columbia is the place for gift items.

Crime IS down in our city. Its been decades since its been this safe to walk down the streets at night. Yet the perception of increased danger is there. This was a topic that came up time and time again during the workshop. In pretty much all the exercises the recommendation that bubbled to the top was not how to make our streets safer, it was always how to make our street FEEL safer. There was no doubt from the NWPS members in the room our street WERE safe already.

A lot of the fear we see is instinctual, a lot of the manipulation on these fears by politicians is playing to these baser instincts. We’re wired to see things in the shadows, from the days our ancestors had to keep an eye out for a tiger hiding in the bushes ready to pounce. But we’re not in the jungle anymore and we do have to learn to use these higher brain functions to properly weight the real risks from the perceived. To be controlled these instincts, which valuable as they may be at times, should not drive our every day lives and reactions.

You’re absolutely right, we’re not very good at realistically weighing risks. Statistics and proper risk assessment based on science should be better taught so we can all make more sound judgments, not just with respect to crime but with respect to all aspects of our lives. Science!

The greater burden on us of course is not to raise generations of children who feel that the world is utterly inhospitable to them, and that people they don’t know are not to be trusted. This is a major burden for our generation in particular as parents of young children. We must fight against reducing ourselves to the role of security ‘copters, and allow our children to explore our world, so that they can learn how to contribute in repairing it, or at least closer to how we feel our world should be.

Maybe this requires stories, too. But, the right ones.