Assaults on subway and bus workers in the city dropped by 31% last year, a statistic cited by transit officials in a letter to the Transportation Department in a bid to stave off threatened federal funding cuts.
Janno Lieber, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s chief executive officer, sent the 22-page response Sunday to a request from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy about crime statistics amid warnings that federal transit money could be withheld. The MTA runs the city’s subway, bus and commuter rail lines.
Federal funds are vital for the MTA as it seeks to rehabilitate a more than century-old transit system. The agency’s 2025—2029 capital budget includes an anticipated $14 billion from Washington. The city’s transit network, the nation’s largest, serves 43% of total U.S. public transportation ridership and helps to generate nearly 10% of U.S. gross domestic product, according to the MTA.
“The capital, operational, and safety needs, as well as the challenges we face daily, are of a different magnitude than most transit agencies — and also why our partnership with the federal government is so important,” Lieber wrote in the letter, which was obtained by Bloomberg News.
There were 116 assaults on the MTA’s subway and bus workers last year, down from 169 in 2023, a 31% reduction, according to the letter. While total major felonies last year on the subway were 11.5% less than 2019 levels, there were 579 reported assaults, the most since at least 1997, according to MTA data.
Duffy’s request comes as the Transportation Department has said it’s withdrawing its approval to charge motorists driving into Manhattan’s busiest streets. The so-called congestion pricing began on Jan. 5 and aims to raise $15 billion for transit infrastructure upgrades. The MTA sued to stop Duffy’s efforts to end the new toll.
Ridership and confidence in the system have slowly increased since the pandemic, but several violent and fatal attacks — including stabbings and people being pushed onto train tracks — keep riders on edge. In December a woman died after being set on fire in a subway car.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul in January boosted policing on the subway system by putting officers on every overnight train. That followed earlier surges in policing during the day and deploying National Guard officers to subway platforms. There were more than 23,420 total arrests in 2024, up from 9,060 in 2022, according to the letter.
The MTA plans to spend $540 million this year and another $778 million in 2026 on electronic security systems, better communication infrastructure and new turnstiles to decrease fare evasion, according to the letter. That’s up from $371 million spent on security in 2024.
Fare evasion has soared since the pandemic and MTA officials have altered turnstiles and exit doors to reverse the trend. About 45% of bus riders avoided the fare in the last quarter of 2024, compared with nearly half skipping the fee at the end of June, according to MTA data. About 10% of subway riders avoided paying, as of Dec. 31, down from 14% at the end of June.
