After President Trump’s transportation secretary trashed the subway as a “shithole,” baffled MTA and NYPD officials pointed to a nearly 30% drop in major transit crime from a year ago.
Chief Joseph Gulotta, head of the NYPD Transit Bureau Chief conceded Monday that the subway is struggling with a safety perception problem — even as the number of robberies, assaults, burglaries and grand larcenies has sunk amid the latest influx of police officers into stations and trains.
“Over the past two months, we’ve seen a 28.2% reduction in crime, which amounts to 110 fewer victims compared to the same period last year,” Gulotta told members of the MTA board during a transit committee meeting. “I mean, those numbers speak for themselves.”
An NYPD officer keeps watch near a subway entrance at the Fulton Transit Center, Dec. 12, 2024. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Gulotta’s monthly presentation on crime within the subway system came after federal transportation chief Sean Duffy said Saturday that Gov. Kathy Hochul could “clean up the subways” within a day and a half — but that “she chooses not to.”
One MTA board member called Duffy’s latest jab at the subway “pretty disappointing,” while another said, “What is our transportation secretary talking about?”
“If our numbers are saying one thing, they’re saying something else,” said Haeda Mihaltses, chairperson of the board’s New York City Transit Committee. “I mean, where are they getting their numbers from?”
“I think people love to pick on New York, people really hate what New York is,” added Samuel Chu, another MTA board member. “Now more than ever, we’re a place where people find a way to live together despite our differences, our eccentricities.”
Board member Andrew Albert said the USDOT secretary’s words were “a real slap in the face” to police officers whose presence within the subway surged again in January, when Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams assigned officers to ride on each train during the overnight hours. The $154 million deployment is being split between the city and the state.
“The whole thing is just aimed to make a point, obviously,” Albert said of Duffy’s digs. “I think riders are feeling a lot better seeing the officers and I’ve watched them move from car to car.”
Duffy’s comments on transit crime followed his threat last week to pull federal funding from the MTA unless it provides the feds with plans for boosting subway safety and provides crime statistics that are already largely publicly available.
“If you want people to take the train, take transit, then make it safe, make it clean, make it beautiful, make it wonderful,” Duffy said Saturday while touring New Jersey sinkholes near Interstate 80. “Don’t make it a shithole, which is what [Hochul] has done.”
Federal Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks about sinkholes on I-80 in New Jersey, March 22, 2025. Credit: Screengrab via Secretary Sean Du
The country’s largest public transportation authority is already locked in a multi-front battle with the feds over congestion pricing.
The MTA last month sued Duffy and the Transportation Department after the administration of President Donald Trump moved to revoke federal authority for the vehicle-tolling plan approved by state lawmakers in 2019 and later approved under the Biden administration.
The nation’s first congestion-pricing plan launched in early January and is designed to generate more than $15 billion dollars for the MTA’s 2020 to 2024 capital plan. The five-year plan is a more than $50 billion blueprint to fund signal upgrades, station overhauls, the extension of the Second Avenue Subway through East Harlem and other essential infrastructure improvements.
But Trump has pushed to follow through on an August campaign pledge to terminate the vehicle-tolling initiative that Hochul herself paused last summer for several months. Following his shutdown order last month, the president crowed “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD,” in social media posts in which he also proclaimed, “LONG LIVE THE KING!”
The federal DOT, meanwhile, has extended its March 21 congestion-pricing shutdown deadline by 30 days, even as Hochul and the MTA have vowed to keep the south-of-60th Street tolling system in place.
Officials on Monday said that the tolls are on target to generate half a billion dollars in revenue for the MTA by the end of 2024 after taking in more than $40.4 million in net revenue last month.
They also cited gains that include bus speeds being up 4% on routes within the congestion relief zone south of 60th Street, as well decreased travel times for paratransit trips within Manhattan.
“Once again, the extensive studies done are proving to be reliable as we close the second month of the program with revenue in line with projections,” said Jai Patel, the MTA’s co-chief financial officer. “This program continues to reduce traffic while generating projected funds for critical transit projects.”
Transit advocates warned that Duffy’s threats to yank federal funding from the transit system are dangerous to the well-being of the subway.
“We beseech Secretary Duffy to help us and not hurt us,” said Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA. “The best way for him to know what the rider experience is like is to be one.”
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