“I think passengers are fed up: subways are not a toy and surfing on the subway is dangerous and disturbing.”
This item was originally published in English on June 27 at 10:58 a.m. EDT on THE CITY
Reports of “subway surfing” have increased nearly 363% since 2020, according to MTA figures provided to THE CITY newspaper.
In the first five months of this year, 449 incidents of people riding on or off trains were reported, MTA data shows, nearly as many as the 461 in all of 2019.
That’s up from 97 for the same period in 2020, when the number of subway passengers plummeted by more than 90% during the peak of the pandemic and from 68 last year.
“We have hundreds of incidents on record that this has occurred on our system in the last several months,” Richard Davey, president of New York City Transit, said Monday during an MTA committee meeting. “I’m going to implore anyone watching this to tell your kids, tell your friends: Don’t do this.”
The MTA provided the figures to THE CITY last week amid a series of recent high-profile subway boating incidents, several of which have been published in the news. social networks.
On Thursday, a 15-year-old boy was seriously injured after police said he hit his head on an unknown object while riding on top of a No. 7 train as it approached the 111th Street station in Queens.
“Oh my God,” gasped Maritza Santos, 44, whose 14-year-son, Eric Riverawas killed in November 2019 after striking something as he rode on top of a No. 7 train near Queensboro Plaza. “I can’t believe they don’t learn unless they didn’t see what happened to Eric.
“Oh my God,” said Maritza Santos, 44, whose 14-year-old son, Eric Rivera, died in November 2019 after hitting something while riding on top of a No. 7 train near Queensboro Plaza. “I can’t believe they don’t learn unless they haven’t seen what happened to Eric.
“I’m shocked that kids keep doing this,” she told THE CITY.
Santos, who has three other children, said he was looking for the unidentified teen, who police say was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center after suffering severe head trauma.
“I pray that he gets better,” he said. “I understand what your family is going through.”
In a graphic video obtained by THE CITY, the teen’s legs dangle over the side of the train car as he lies bloodied on top.
A woman’s voice can be heard on the platform saying in Spanish: “I’m sorry, but this has to happen for them to stop doing this.”
The gruesome scene follows other dangerous stunts on the subway, including an incident June 12 in which at least eight black-clad subway surfers were filmed while running on top of a train approaching the Marcy Avenue stop in Brooklyn.
Last month, Sarah Meyer, the MTA’s director of customer service, responded on Twitter that transit workers “hate cleaning up subway surfers’ body parts” after someone tweeted @NYCTSubway that “running in your trains is a lot of fun.
“This is not the way to win keys”, tweeted Meyer in response to someone who had posted “I hope to be an MTA worker and get the keys.”
“INPRRUDENT” AND “INCONSIDERED”
Following Thursday’s subway boating incident at the 111th Street stop, MTA Safety Director Patrick Warren called the reckless acts “reckless, extremely dangerous and inconsiderate” because of the delays they cause.
On Monday, Davey repeated that subway surfing is life-threatening and delays trains.
“Please, please do something else with your time,” Davey said. “But surfing is dangerous.”
The spike in reported incidents of people traveling off trains comes as passenger numbers have returned to about 60% of pre-pandemic levels, data shows. MTA dataand the number of daily subway trips exceeded 3.4 million nine times in the first 16 days of June.
Transit workers themselves have also posted videos on social media of people climbing to the top of trains from the open area between subway cars.
“It’s about getting the message across that it’s silly, that it’s not safe,” said Canella Gomez, an official with the Transport Workers Union Local 100 that represents train operators and conductors. “It seems like right now this is just a fad and hopefully after this last kid got hurt, he’ll stop.”
Lisa Daglian, executive director of the MTA Citizens Standing Advisory Committee, noted that the increase in dangerous gambling mirrors the increase since 2019 in intrusions on subway tracks.
“I was on a train on the 7 and they were stopping the train and waiting for the police because there were multiple people outside the train,” Daglian told THE CITY. “I think passengers are fed up: subways are not a toy and surfing on the subway is dangerous and disturbing.”
For Santos, the series of stunts on the subway makes no sense and heightens the pain of losing his son shortly before his 15th birthday. He pointed out that he would have graduated from high school this year.
“I will never be the same person,” he said. “It’s a pain that doesn’t go away.”
THE CITY is an independent, nonprofit news outlet dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York.
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