The federal transportation chief who trashed the subway as a “sh-thole” took a photo-op train ride with Mayor Eric Adams on Friday — but didn’t bother giving a heads-up to the MTA.
In his latest jab at New York’s transit system, Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy hinted that the MTA may be in line for a probe of its spending habits — after previously threatening to withhold billions of dollars in federal funding.
“I’m going to offer folks from DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency] to come down and take a look at what MTA is doing, how they’re spending money and can they be more efficient to taxpayers in the state of New York,” Duffy said while standing next to Adams inside the Broadway-Lafayette station.
MTA CEO Janno Lieber — who’d gone to the Borough Hall station in Brooklyn where many activists and journalists originally thought the mayor and Duffy would be — said it was “disappointing” to receive “no response” from Duffy after officials at the transit agency got wind of his subway visit via social media posts.
Duffy has repeatedly taken aim at congestion pricing, the Manhattan vehicle-tolling program that is designed to raise billions of dollars for MTA capital upgrades, and threatened to pull funding over subway crime.
“If he’s in charge of transportation in the United States and transit in the United States, he needs to be properly briefed,” Lieber told reporters at the Borough Hall station in Brooklyn. “He keeps making statements about congestion pricing, about the subway.
“But it just shows, his staff is not properly briefing him, he’s not getting accurate information.”
Lieber pointed to new NYPD data that shows subway crime is down by 22% this year when compared to 2024 — figures that officials have previously touted as being at their lowest level in 15 years.
“Progress is being made, the mayor himself touted it yesterday,” Lieber said. “And not for nothing, fare evasion in the subway system is down by 30% since last summer.”
The drop in crime has come as the uniformed presence in stations and on trains has repeatedly surged, with Governor Kathy Hochul announcing in January that two NYPD officers are now assigned to ride on every overnight train.
But officials have acknowledged that assaults have increased by more than 50% since 2019.
That followed the transportation secretary’s surprise subway ride along with Adams, which was chronicled by a few hand-picked reporters. Top MTA officials and transit advocates had shown up in Brooklyn in hopes of confronting the pair, only to learn they had taken another route.
The mayor instead stood smiling alongside Duffy in Manhattan days after a federal judge dismissed his corruption case and said he was “very pleased” to be joined by President Donald Trump’s transportation chief.
“Often, bureaucrats throughout the years, they attempt to solve these problems from inside the sterilized environment of their offices,” Adams said. “We’ve got to get on the ground and look and see — that is what the invite was.
“I made it clear, this administration is going to work with our federal partners.”
As rumors of Duffy and Adams’ subway jaunt bounced around social media, some transit advocates also showed up at the Borough Hall station in hopes of making a point about the need to fund transit.
MTA Chair Janno Lieber speaks at the Borough Hall station in Brooklyn about congestion pricing, April 4, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
“New Yorkers rely on transit,” said Betsy Plum, executive director of Riders Alliance, who popped by the Borough Hall station after being at a nearby meeting. “If you really care about improving transit for New Yorkers, you would be committed to investing in it and ensuring that more New Yorkers can ride.”
Nearly a third of the MTA’s $68.4 billion capital improvements plan for 2025 to 2029 is not funded and congestion pricing was created to fill a more than $15 billion gap in the previous five-year plan.
The USDOT instead moved to put an end to the new tolls in February, an attempt to follow through on a Trump campaign pledge.
The MTA countered with a federal lawsuit, while Gov. Kathy Hochul pledged to keep the tolling system in spite of the order from Washington.
The governor’s office on Friday cited the drop in subway crime and Hochul’s series of steps — many taken in partnership with Adams — to make riders feel more at ease while in transit.
Duffy’s surprise visit came after Lieber last week said he would welcome the opportunity to show the transportation secretary around the system. Instead, it turned into a spectacle, as reporters not on the guest list tried to locate Duffy and Adams during their subway jaunt.
“It’s completely embarrassing at best for both the federal government and the mayor,” Plum said.
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