MTA executives politely pushed back Wednesday against the federal transportation chief who branded the subway a crime-ridden “sh-thole” while threatening to withhold billions of dollars in funding.
Using what MTA chairperson and CEO Janno Lieber labeled a “professional, fact-based approach,” transit officials highlighted during their monthly board meeting how the more than 2,200 felonies in the subway system last year were down 64% from 1997 — when there were more than 6,000 felonies or an average of 17 a day.
The 2024 subway crime totals sank to their lowest level in 15 years, officials said, even while acknowledging that assaults have shot up 55% since 2019.
Almost a third of those were attacks against police officers, according to officials.
“The most frequent felony assault in the system is ‘stopped for fare evasion, hit the cop,’” Lieber said.
The MTA boss repeatedly used the word “rhetoric” to describe recent jabs at New York from President Donald Trump and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy over subway crime and congestion pricing, while emphasizing that the two sides will eventually have to find common ground.
The presentation from several top MTA officials preceded the agency’s formal response to the federal government, officials said.
“The facts do matter and you’re not going to mess with our six million riders just as a political game,” Lieber said. “We have to be clear that the riders are depending on us and they’re depending on the federal government to treat them fairly and based on facts.”
Duffy last week threatened to withhold federal funding from the MTA unless the agency addresses its efforts on crime in the subway and provides numbers — many of which are already publicly available — on assaults, police staffing levels and subway surfing.
He then followed up by trashing the subway and saying problems could be fixed “in hours, not days,” by Gov. Kathy Hochul. He continued with a social media post that called the MTA’s funding requests “outrageous,” adding that “the federal government is not a blank check.”
“If you want people to take the train, to take transit, then make it safe, make it beautiful, make it wonderful,” Duffy, a New Jersey resident, said Saturday. “Don’t make it a sh-thole, which is what she [Hochul] has done.”
‘Not Out to Make Enemies’
MTA officials on Wednesday delivered a detailed response at the agency’s monthly board meeting, pointing out how the city’s overall crime rate is barely driven by what’s happening on trains and in stations and more in line with small cities like West Palm Beach, Fla. and Columbus, Ohio — and well below Memphis, Houston and Washington D.C.
“Very important to note: less than 2% of all overall crime recorded in New York City occurs in the subway system,” said the MTA’s chief security officer, Michael Kemper, a 33-year NYPD veteran who previously led the department’s Transit Bureau.
He and other transit officials have repeatedly made the case that the subway system is battling perception versus reality when it comes to safety, while Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams have repeatedly placed more police in stations and on trains.
“I am the first to say that we have a way to go before riders are truly as safe as they ought to be and feel as safe as they ought to be,” Lieber said. “But the stats don’t lie — progress has been made.”
On multiple occasions during Wednesday’s meeting, Lieber extended an olive branch toward Duffy, saying the MTA has” a good story to tell” and that he would be “happy to speak with him.”
MTA head Janno Lieber speaks at a board meeting in the agency’s Lower Manhattan headquarters, March 26, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
“We are not out to make any enemies, we’re literally in the bridges business,” he said. “This MTA looks forward — when the dust settles, we are going to have to work with Washington on fact-based solutions to the challenges we face.”
The back-and-forth over subway crime follows earlier efforts by the Trump administration to kill the congestion pricing program that started Jan. 5. Duffy last week extended a March 21 shutdown deadline for the Manhattan vehicle-tolling initiative by 30 days.
The tolls have been hailed for cross-river commutes, speeding buses and other trips while providing a way to fund the MTA’s $50 billion 2020 to 2024 capital plan.
The potential end of congestion pricing and federal funding cuts over subway crime could carry grave consequences for the future of the transit system.
“I am concerned that instead of being treated as a serious and bipartisan issue, as it always has been, it’s being treated like it’s just another political football,” Lieber said. “I hope that we’ll get past that.
“We’ll give [Duffy] a full answer to his questions, but we need to come back to reality, how important this is,” he added. “This is not a game.”
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