A novel way to fight crime
Mexico City subway will lend books to riders
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MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- Mexico City's subway will begin lending books to riders Friday in a new program aimed at reducing crime and fostering a more hospitable atmosphere for millions of commuters.
The city plans to distribute 7 million paperbacks in the next two years and hopes that people will return the books when they are finished -- turning the Metro into a kind of lending library as an unorthodox way of helping to reduce crime.
"We are convinced that when people read, people change," said Javier Gonzalez Garza, the director of the Metro.
The idea emerged from discussions of ways to cut the sky-high crime rate in Mexico's capital, a city of some 8.5 million people.
Some have doubts about the program's value as an anti-crime tool.
"Now we'll have an equal number of delinquents, but well-educated," said Omar Raul Martinez, the director of a book and magazine publishing firm.
Mexico City isn't the first major city to try cultivating a literary underground. Tokyo has dozens of tiny paperback borrowing libraries at subway stations, usually located outside or turnstyles for commuters to borrow. Japanese commuters say the borrowing libraries foster a sense of community.
Mexico City's subway has adopted other measures to improve the commute, including installing art exhibits in stations and requiring men and women to ride separate cars at rush hour to prevent fondling and other forms of sexual harassment.
Robbery and pickpocketing remain common on the vast Metro system, which carries 4.7 million people a day across the capital for 2 pesos (less than 20 U.S. cents) a ride.
Authorities in Mexico are considering a number of measures to reduce crime in the city, but Gonzalez said the Metro decided to address the issue from "the cultural side."
National literacy push
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 We are convinced that when people read, people change. 
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-- Javier Gonzalez Garza, director of the Metro
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The administration of Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a potential presidential candidate in 2006, also may have voters in mind as it lends out books to the city's poorer residents, who are more likely to use the Metro than wealthier Mexicans.
The subway program comes amid a national push to increase literacy, with President Vicente Fox planning an expansion of the national library system and increased spending on textbooks.
Mexico has an official literacy rate above 90 percent, but many people do not read daily, in part because many are too poor to buy books.
Organizers of the book project hope to create 500,000 new readers. A private company that controls the subway's advertising concession will pay for most of the books.
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Now we'll have an equal number of delinquents, but well-educated.
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-- Omar Raul Martinez, director of a publishing firm
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The city has commissioned 250,000 copies of a book containing accounts of Mexico City life in prose, poetry and works of theater -- with passages short enough to read during a subway ride.
The opening piece by Carlos Monsivais, one of Mexico's most prominent writers, recounts the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in 1985, when people rallied to organize rescue crews and help victims.
"It could have some effect if it convinces people that without organization, without solidarity you cannot confront the immense urban and ecological catastrophe that is Mexico City," said Monsivais, who accepted a "symbolic" payment of $300 for use of his work.
Monsivais, a regular Metro rider, said he had faith the books will be put to good use.
"Those that don't (return them) will lend them to other people," he said.
Copyright 2004 The
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