After President Trump’s transportation secretary trashed the subway as a “shithole,” baffled MTA and NYPD officers pointed to a virtually 30% drop in main transit crime from a 12 months in the past.
Chief Joseph Gulotta, head of the NYPD Transit Bureau Chief conceded Monday that the subway is combating a security notion downside — even because the variety of robberies, assaults, burglaries and grand larcenies has sunk amid the newest inflow of law enforcement officials into stations and trains.
“Over the past two months, we’ve seen a 28.2% reduction in crime, which amounts to 110 fewer victims compared to the same period last year,” Gulotta informed members of the MTA board throughout a transit committee assembly. “I mean, those numbers speak for themselves.”
An NYPD officer retains watch close to a subway entrance on the Fulton Transit Middle, Dec. 12, 2024. Credit score: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Gulotta’s month-to-month presentation on crime throughout the subway system got here after federal transportation chief Sean Duffy mentioned Saturday that Gov. Kathy Hochul may “clean up the subways” inside a day and a half — however that “she chooses not to.”
One MTA board member referred to as Duffy’s newest jab on the subway “pretty disappointing,” whereas one other mentioned, “What is our transportation secretary talking about?”
“If our numbers are saying one thing, they’re saying something else,” mentioned Haeda Mihaltses, chairperson of the board’s New York Metropolis Transit Committee. “I mean, where are they getting their numbers from?”
“I think people love to pick on New York, people really hate what New York is,” added Samuel Chu, one other MTA board member. “Now more than ever, we’re a place where people find a way to live together despite our differences, our eccentricities.”
Board member Andrew Albert mentioned the USDOT secretary’s phrases have been “a real slap in the face” to law enforcement officials whose presence throughout the subway surged once more in January, when Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams assigned officers to experience on every practice in the course of the in a single day hours. The $154 million deployment is being cut up between town and the state.
“The whole thing is just aimed to make a point, obviously,” Albert mentioned of Duffy’s digs. “I think riders are feeling a lot better seeing the officers and I’ve watched them move from car to car.”
Duffy’s feedback on transit crime adopted his menace final week to tug federal funding from the MTA except it gives the feds with plans for reinforcing subway security and gives crime statistics which are already largely publicly out there.
“If you want people to take the train, take transit, then make it safe, make it clean, make it beautiful, make it wonderful,” Duffy mentioned Saturday whereas touring New Jersey sinkholes close to Interstate 80. “Don’t make it a shithole, which is what [Hochul] has done.”
Federal Division of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks about sinkholes on I-80 in New Jersey, March 22, 2025. Credit score: Screengrab by way of Secretary Sean Du
The nation’s largest public transportation authority is already locked in a multi-front battle with the feds over congestion pricing.
The MTA final month sued Duffy and the Transportation Division after the administration of President Donald Trump moved to revoke federal authority for the vehicle-tolling plan accredited by state lawmakers in 2019 and later accredited below the Biden administration.
The nation’s first congestion-pricing plan launched in early January and is designed to generate greater than $15 billion {dollars} for the MTA’s 2020 to 2024 capital plan. The five-year plan is a greater than $50 billion blueprint to fund sign upgrades, station overhauls, the extension of the Second Avenue Subway by means of East Harlem and different important infrastructure enhancements.
The federal DOT, in the meantime, has prolonged its March 21 congestion-pricing shutdown deadline by 30 days, whilst Hochul and the MTA have vowed to maintain the south-of-Sixtieth Avenue tolling system in place.
Officers on Monday mentioned that the tolls are heading in the right direction to generate half a billion {dollars} in income for the MTA by the top of 2024 after taking in additional than $40.4 million in web income final month.
In addition they cited positive aspects that embody bus speeds being up 4% on routes throughout the congestion reduction zone south of Sixtieth Avenue, as nicely decreased journey occasions for paratransit journeys inside Manhattan.
“Once again, the extensive studies done are proving to be reliable as we close the second month of the program with revenue in line with projections,” mentioned Jai Patel, the MTA’s co-chief monetary officer. “This program continues to reduce traffic while generating projected funds for critical transit projects.”
Transit advocates warned that Duffy’s threats to yank federal funding from the transit system are harmful to the well-being of the subway.
“We beseech Secretary Duffy to help us and not hurt us,” mentioned Lisa Daglian, government director of the Everlasting Residents Advisory Committee to the MTA. “The best way for him to know what the rider experience is like is to be one.”
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