Trail Safe 1-2-3 is the name of a pathway safety program started in Reston after a woman was assaulted on the W&OD trail. It's been in effect for three years and has gone relatively unused. Hmm, let's see if we can figure out why. Well for starters a search on "Trail Safe" Reston on Google turns up basically nothing on it - except that it the name of the program was changed to Park Safe and then Park Watch. OK so bad branding.
So let's see what the program doesn't do:
“Some lighting can aid, but it's not going to give you a guarantee of safety,” said Jones. She added that putting call boxes on the pathways poses the same problem depending on their location.
Reston Association President Jennifer Blackwell has opposed putting up lighting around the pathways.
So no lights and no callboxes.
So what does it do:
individuals can register with the Reston police, describing where they typically run on the pathways. The information is kept confidential and used only in emergency situations.
“This feature is used to give people an awareness of where they are running,” said Jones, acknowledging that not many people have signed up yet because they think their information may not be kept confidential.
What the %$#%? What kind of "awareness" are people being given exactly? And you're saying that people are afraid the government might not keep their information confidential? That's a shocker.
As near as I can tell all Trail Safe 1-2-3 does is tell the police where to look for your dead body when you haven't shown up to work in 1-2-3 days. How about this for Trail safety, have a bicycle cop ride the trail several times a day at unpredictable times - oh yeah and the lights and call boxes. Those seem good too.
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