Protecting the Subway System Essential to Keep New York Moving
Even though it has been anything but easy, New York’s mass transit system is once again being used as the primary source of travel at an increasing rate since being effectively shut down at the height of the COVID pandemic. Subway ridership has grown 148% since January 2021 and continues to climb, with a 5% increase in 2024 over 2023. A single-day post-pandemic record of 4.5 million was reached in mid-December. With this comes a greater responsibility on each and every one of us to keep it safe. While prioritizing affordability and support of families, New York Governor Kathy Hochul is showing that to her, emphasizing public safety is just as important.
Last March, the governor instituted her plan to utilize state resources to enhance the safety and protection of all New Yorkers on the subways. While crime within the transit system is already down 10% since the plan was announced, the governor refuses to claim, “mission accomplished.” Instead, she’s studied the situation closely and collaborated with stakeholders to put elements of her plan into action. As part of her recent State of the State address she went even further to protect riders and more than 40,000 members of TWU Local 100 and other transit workers who keep the city moving.
In December, the governor announced she was working with the city to increase the law enforcement presence throughout the system with the deployment of 1,000 National Guard members and 250 members of the New York State Police and MTA Police Department members as part of Joint Task Force Empire Shield. Their job is to assist the New York City Police Dept with bag checks and other forms of violence prevention at heavily trafficked areas. In her speech, she built on that to say that there will be a temporary surge in patrol levels at 30 subway stations and transit hubs that account for half of all the crime in the system plus an increased uniformed presence on overnight trains for the next 6 months.
Among the other steps being taken:
- New protective barriers will be installed to protect people waiting on platforms at more than 100 subway stations.
- LED lights will be installed on all stations to enhance visibility and fare gates and exits will be modernized to inhibit fare evasion in every subway station.
- Installation of security cameras to protect conductor cabins was accelerated and is now complete with more than 15,000 cameras in 100% of subway cars.
- Law enforcement, transit personnel, and prosecutors will continue to meet regularly to coordinate information sharing and ensure that dangerous and repeat offenders within the system are held accountable.
- $20 million has been invested to increase the number of Subway Co-Response Outreach Team (SCOUT) and Safe Options Support (SOS) teams who are responsible for addressing the most severe cases of mental health crises occurring within subway stations.
Ours is not an easy world. Americans and especially New Yorkers still struggle to recover from the damaging effects of the pandemic. In such difficult times, it is meaningful to consider some of the basic principles of our democracy.
Running for president in 1959, John F. Kennedy spoke on the challenge of crime before the District Attorneys’ Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin:
“One hundred and fifty years ago a member of the British Parliament described that nation’s inhabitants as ‘the most lawless, corrupt, and criminally disposed race in the whole of the civilized world.’ Organized crime had spread over the country. Dealing in stolen goods was one of London’s most prominent sources on income. Organized mobs periodically looted large sections of British cities. And corruption had spread to officials in every branch of government, at the highest and lowest levels.
“But the British overcame this trend to build a tradition of honesty, integrity, and scrupulous administration of criminal justice. And we in this country can reverse our ominous trends as well. It will require and extraordinary effort of the part of federal and local officials. It will require a real revitalization of public opinion. It will require the personal dedication for a better country on the part of each every one of us.
“But it can be done. In the words of Woodrow Wilson: ‘This is the high enterprise of the new day: to lift everything that concerns our life as a nation to the light that shines from the hearth fire of every man’s conscience.’”
President Kennedy’s words are as true today as they were 66 years ago. Working with Governor Hochul, we will best honor the American spirit by working together to strengthen public safety.
Assemblymember Charles Lavine represents New York’s 13th Assembly District in Nassau County. He presently serves as Chair of the Judiciary Committee and is a member of the Committees on Codes, Ethics and Guidance, Insurance and Rules. Lavine previously served as Chair of the Election Law Committee, Chair of the Committee on Ethics and Guidance, co-Chair of the New York State Legislative Ethics Commission and as Chair of the bipartisan Taskforce that produced the Assembly Speaker’s Policy on Sexual Harassment, Retaliation and Discrimination.
