If riders are going to feel safe getting around on New York City subways, perceptions have to change.
It’s pretty clear that reality is changing. Major subway crimes are down 22% from this time last year. However, public perception hasn’t caught up to that improvement, and many riders still say they feel unsafe.
Count among the doubters U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who has threatened MTA’s federal funding citing safety concerns. The federal government spends as much as $2.5 billion each year with the MTA, and about $14 billion – or 20% of the agency’s upcoming, multi-year capital plan – is expected to come from Washington.
Reached last week for a discussion about the public perception of crime in the subways, MTA officials seemed cheered that everyone at the top in New York City and Albany is playing from the same sheet of music. They cited a recent commitment by NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch to move more than 200 officers into subway patrols on trains and platforms and to enforce quality-of-life rules such as prohibitions against smoking, laying down on trains or platforms, drinking alcohol, evading fares or spitting.
This is crucial work, and we applaud the NYPD, Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams and the MTA for working together.
In addition, MTA Chief Security Officer Michael Kempner told Crain’s that the involuntary removal of some longtime inhabitants of the subway – people who have serious mental illnesses who had previously refused to leave – has been a “game-changer.”
The NYPD and Transit Police have been deploying teams paired with mental health workers to approach people clearly in need of help, through programs called Subway Co-Response Outreach Teams and Partnership Assistance for Transit Homelessness. Since launching in late August, PATH teams have interacted with 11,000 individuals in the transit system, 144 of which ended in police initiating a transport to a hospital against their will, according to information provided to Crain’s by the mayor’s office.
Clearly, removing people who are homeless and need help goes well beyond the duty of a transit agency. But the MTA, the NYPD and state and city leadership are doing this because it needs to be done to reassure riders – and folks in Washington.
No one needs to explain to the business community just how vital the subway and commuter rails are to getting people to work. People are using the subways more now that congestion pricing has made driving relatively more expensive.
The perception of safety will take hold over time. As Ernest Hemingway described bankruptcy, and John Green described love: It happens slowly and then all at once.
