Good news for people parking at Denver International Airport: Your car is now a little less likely to have an unauthorized takeoff.
What’s happening: Following major spikes in auto thefts on airport grounds last summer, the rate of car-napping appears to have dropped significantly for the last two months after airport officials ramped up new safety measures. Those include:
- Adding nearly a dozen surveillance cameras and increasing the presence of security officers;
- Building concrete barriers to prevent thieves from exiting easily;
- Installing technology that tells security when stolen vehicles enter certain locations.
By the numbers: DIA’s vehicle theft peaked last July with a rate of five incidents per 1,000 vehicles, or 112 cars total, and dropped in December to just 10 cars, an Axios analysis found.
Driving the news: On Thursday, Mayor Mike Johnston will announce a new initiative that builds on the city’s broader auto theft strategy, which included the police department’s Auto Theft Investigations Team that launched as a pilot in mid-2023 .