July 13, 2004
By Gabrielle Birkner, Staff Writer
STAMFORD -- In the late 1980s and early 1990s, friends would warn Steve Canna that walking at night to the Stamford train station from his Landmark Square office meant a potentially life-threatening risk.
Until recently the railroad station was a scary place, said Canna, an accountant who has commuted to Stamford from Milford since 1987.
"I used to carry a briefcase more for protection than anything else," said Canna, recalling stairwells that smelled of urine and dark and dirty pedestrian tunnels that were a haven for Stamford's homeless population.
The drug deals, muggings and assaults that were commonplace at the Stamford station until the late 1990s had Canna and thousands of other commuters on edge.
A March 16, 1995, editorial in The Advocate addressed the issue of safety at the railroad station. "It is essential that people coming to the city and the train station feel safe," it read. "Too often, though, occasional accounts of passengers accosted by drug addicts and muggers have been sufficient to intimidate people and make them rethink using the train station, or even working or living here."
But the recently completed $79 million station renovation and security improvements in and around the station have fostered a sense of safety among those who use the Stamford train station. The state took over operation of the station from the city in 2000.
In 1998, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority opened a police substation on the transportation center's lower level.
MTA Police Deputy Chief Sean McLaughlin said there are at least two officers on duty at all times -- one patrolling the station and another monitoring the closed-circuit security cameras located at potential flashpoints.
With better security, "the general friendliness of the station has improved," McLaughlin said.
Canna also said the presence of the nearby investment bank UBS has improved conditions at the railroad station.
"Now that there's UBS, there's more people around and more activity going on," Canna said of the company, which moved its North American headquarters to Stamford in the mid-1990s and employs about 4,000 people.
Increased safety at the Stamford train station is part of a larger trend of decreased crime throughout the city, Mayor Dannel Malloy said. Since Malloy took office in 1995, crime has dropped 63.7 percent, and last year Stamford was named the fourth-safest city in the country, according to statistics compiled by the FBI.
Malloy said until recently much of the city's crime took place around the Interstate 95 corridor, adjacent to the railroad station.
"We've expanded the ability of (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) police to make arrests at adjoining properties through an ordinance," he said. "Lots of people used to use (the station), as they do now, and they said they felt less safe than they do now."
Greenwich resident Anne Gilmore feels the difference. A decade ago, she said, the Stamford station was "no place you'd ever want to get off."
"It's safer now, and though it's not the most beautiful place in the world, it's definitely well lit and seems to have security guards around," she said. "I've been at the station late at night, and I get the feeling that the whole level of the community has gone up."
The influx of reverse commuters -- people who commute from New York City to Stamford -- has also played a part in making the station feel more secure. "There's more people, more bodies, more often," she said.
David Lavado, a transportation principal engineer with the Connecticut DOT, oversaw the station renovation, which took place from June 1998 to July 2003. He said the station's construction and upgrades -- including sodium vapor florescent lighting on the train platforms, in the pedestrian tunnels and waiting areas -- have contributed to the increased sense of security. Lavado also pointed to improved maintenance since the state'stakeover of the station.
"Now it's a very open type of structure," he said. "There are not a lot of corners where you can't see what's behind you. . . . The areas are lit, making safer pedestrian movement, and the overall appearance of the structure make people feel more comfortable there."
The city of Stamford, the Connecticut Department of Transportation, the MTA police and station management all had a hand in making the station feel more secure.
"Credit goes all around," McLaughlin said.
From The Stamford Advocate
