Officials shared new details about New York City’s new subway safety teams during an MTA meeting Tuesday, saying they would start by targeting six train lines that have had more problems than others as they move into the new approach to improve transit.
Those lines include the A, E, 1/2/3 (described as a combo target), N, R and 7 to start, the MTA said. The officials declined to share further details about the deployment of the security teams. These are being managed by the City Council and the governor’s office following a joint news conference last week in which Mayor Eric Adams and the Democrat outlined the new approach to improving traffic safety.
The goal, as they said, is to use these new safety equipment to address both homelessness and crime on public transportation, which has been plagued by spikes in violence that officials fear will deter people from returning to the system after the lockdown. COVID.
On the homeless front, officials said police removed several people from the trains Monday night and they will be out seven days a week going forward. It was not clear how many people were removed from trains on Monday night or since the plan was launched.
The City Council did not immediately respond to an email request for additional details about the coordinated response Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the plan was implemented amid a bank holiday weekend in which police recorded more than half a dozen attacks on trains and stations. It involves sending more police officers, mental health doctors and social service workers underground. It is starting with a phased implementation and the hope is that the visible presence of more police and others around the trains will help people feel safe.
The plan points out that many people who use the subway as a refuge need help, not handcuffs to go to jail. But he says police will crack down on sleeping, littering, smoking, doing drugs or hanging out in the system. It requires clearing all passengers from trains at the ends of their lines, an approach that has had its ups and downs over the years.
“What happened this weekend can’t be normal” and reflects the need for the new strategy, MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said Monday.
In recent years, the city has oscillated between responding to concerns about subway crime and complaints about heavy-handed police. The former mayor, Democrat Bill de Blasio, at times deployed more police to the system. Adams too, just last month. Strengthening subway security was a campaign promise.
“The days of turning a blind eye to this growing problem are over,” the Democrat said last week in announcing the plan.
But Shelly Nortz, deputy executive director of the nonprofit Coalition for the Homelesswarned against “criminalizing homelessness and mental illness” and suggested the city was turning to policing strategies that had failed in the past.
But in the weeks since, a woman was pushed in front of a train and killed in Times Square, a man was pushed onto the tracks and injured in a major lower Manhattan hub, and even the mayor said he didn’t feel entirely safe. traveling on the nation’s busiest subway system. He carried more than 5 million passengers on an average weekday before the coronavirus pandemic; the weekday average is now about 3 million.
–
