MTA, NY leaders step up efforts to stop violence on subways

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently unveiled new initiatives to tackle what has become a troubling increase in the number of violent crimes committed on the New York City Transit subway system.

The initiatives include using state public emergency funds and working with the city on a dedicated revenue source to support an additional police presence on the subway, MTA officials said in a press release. The agency will boost the police presence on the system by about 1,200 additional overtime officer shifts each day.

The MTA Police Department and the New York Police Department will deploy more officers and increase their presence on platforms and trains. MTAPD officers will be deployed at four major commuter-rail hubs — Penn Station, Grand Central Station, Atlantic Terminal and Sutphin-Archer (Jamaica) Station — which will help free up around 100 NYPD officers to be deployed at other priority locations.

The initiatives will allow commuters and those attempting to commit crimes to see more police in the transit system, MTA officials said in a press release.

"Subway ridership has surged since Labor Day, and we remain focused on growing rider confidence through increased deployment of uniformed officers, cameras installed in every subway car and further progress on quality-of-life issues," said MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber.

MTA also is working with psychiatric centers to provide assistance to those experiencing serious mental health problems on the subway system. Hochul directed the state’s Office of Mental Health to create two new dedicated 25-bed units.

The state will expand crisis intervention training for MTAPD, NYPD and emergency responders. The training will focus on best practices for engaging individuals experiencing homelessness.

The new initiatives build on projects announced earlier by Adams, MTA and Hochul that have been in the works for most of 2022. Adams released the Subway Safety Plan in February, which expanded response teams throughout the subway system to help address the rise of individuals experiencing homelessness and mental health crises. Hochul and Adams have also pledged to explore strengthening state and local laws to provide more help to those individuals.

Safety concerns have increased in recent years — there have been nine murders in the city’s subway system in 2022 alone, a level much higher than any of the five years preceding the pandemic, The New York Times reported Oct. 22. Before the pandemic, there was an average of two murders per year on the subway.

Adams claimed that 40% of the murders are believed to have been committed by people with a history of mental health issues.