New York Governor Kathy Hochul said subway crime in New York City is declining as more police officers patrol the stations and cameras are installed on train cars, a positive for overall ridership.
(Bloomberg) — New York Governor Kathy Hochul said subway crime in New York City is declining as more police officers patrol the stations and cameras are installed on train cars, a positive for overall ridership.
The city has seen a 16% drop in subway crime since October, Hochul said at a press conference in lower Manhattan Friday morning. The latest data comes from a comprehensive customer satisfaction survey by the governor and Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the largest US transit system.
“As we are trying to attract people to come back, we had to be able to answer the question, will I be safe, is my child safe going to school on the subway,” Hochul said at the press conference. “If you are someone looking to do harm to somebody, that is a powerful deterrent when you know there is a police officer right either in the train, the platform or the mezzanine.”
The results differ from New York City Police Department’s crime statistics database, which shows a more modest decrease in transit incidents. According to that data, there was a 1.3% decline in incidents since October. Using percentages to measure changes in subway crime can result in wild swings because there are relatively few incidents each month.
Subway crime rose by 30% in 2022 from a year ago, outpacing the 22% jump in major crimes across the city during the same period, according to police data released earlier this month.
“People felt unsafe in our system,” Mayor Eric Adams said at the briefing. “Those high-profile cases really impact riders and so we had to stabilize the system.”
The number of subway incidents remained lower than pre-pandemic levels, when there were more riders. Weekday ridership has stagnated at 60% of 2019 levels. The lack of ridership comes with major costs for the MTA, a state agency that runs the city’s subways, buses and commuter rails.
The transit provider said in December that it would hike fares by 5.5%, cut spending and reduce service on some subway lines, due to depressed ridership.
Read more: NY MTA Approves $19 Billion Budget With Fare Hike, Service Cuts
Adams and Hochul in October pledged 1,200 overtime shifts by NYPD officers to supplement the nearly 2,600 police officers already assigned to the system. That surge was meant to address a pandemic-related increase in subway crime, which came as riders returned to public transit.
When asked how much the city was paying for the additional officers, Adams said, “I am not going to put a price tag on public safety.”
–With assistance from Fola Akinnibi.
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