5/18/13 Kentucky Police Chief: Trail Likely to Deter Crime in Hopkinsville

This Rails-to-Trails blog entry consists mostly of quotes from a Kentucky New Era, the local paper, piece (that requires a subscription), Police chief expects safe rail-trail. It is an interview with Chief of Police Guy Howie, who has had professional experience with trails in prior positions. Hopkinsville is considering their first rail-trail. He is all for trails as a safety feature for the community. The increase in adjacent property values is just a side effect for him.

A couple of extracts from the extract:

"What's there now, it's already being used by some for both legal and illegal purposes. Once we improve that and it's being utilized by law-abiding citizens, and it's maintained and kept up, the people who are using it for illegal purposes now aren't going to want to stay because they don't want to be discovered."

"Every place that we looked or I talked about, or had personal knowledge of, any time those facilities are used, there's generally not a problem. Nowhere could we find where crime went up along those areas to any significant extent. ... There are projects like this all across the country. Nobody has come up with any research that we're aware of to the contrary, or to the negative. It's just a perception, and where it comes from, I don't know."

KNE: "Do you think people who have property that abuts the trail should be concerned?" Howie: "No. I think they should be ecstatic. Right now, it's already being used by those people. ... It's deserted and that's why they're using it. If I owned a piece of property and it backed up to the rail-trail, I would be excited that it's going to be improved."

This mirrors the experiences of Victor, as well. Prior to establishing the Auburn Trail, there were a couple of local "party hangouts." After being cleaned up and the trail being used by the "good guys," there has been no further problems.

The comments in the blog article all are equally as positive, from many different viewpoints.