“Maintaining and further improving our safety remains a non-negotiable issue for us on commuter trains.”
Metropolitan Transportation Authority safety director Patrick Warren said Tuesday at a board meeting at MTA headquarters as he displayed photos of law enforcement officers interacting with the public.
The saying comes just as a report from the City Police Department shows a 40 percent increase in homicides, assaults and robberies in this essential transportation system for New Yorkers.
Users like Virgilio Ramírez have lost faith.
“There will always be discussions between politicians and other people who don’t take the subway like we do,” Ramírez said.
Just Monday night, a 27-year-old man stabbed another 31-year-old man aboard a D-line train after an argument. Both were arrested at the 47th Street and Sixth Avenue station, one block from Times Square.
“All you want is to go home. Go to work and come home to your family,” added Ramírez.
Appealing to the meeting’s most skeptics, a report included recent topics such as more than 1,200 more police officers patrolling the subway and plans to put cameras in cars.
But there has also been talk of equipping all 472 subway platforms in the Big Apple with cameras, continuous announcements of the presence of agents, and to make them more visible, they want them to spread inside the terminals and not stay still in the same place.
More vigilance.
The MTA board and users think the same thing.
“I take it every day in the morning and then in the afternoon, and I’ve seen the cops, but maybe there’s still some missing,” said Karina Rosales.
They say they already have 50 beds in medical care centers to help homeless people in need of psychological care. They train staff to assist them, and dozens have been given permanent residency.
The latter is a thorny point for Rosales, who says she takes the train a lot with her six-year-old son and sees things not suitable for minors.
“A lot of homeless people, a lot of drugs. Things that maybe kids his age, my son is six, it’s not nice for them to see.”
Reference was also made to 52 ongoing cases of sexual harassment in the railway system, and calls for the judicial system to ban them for life. They’ve already reported one in Suffolk County, Staten Island.
Last but not least, with more police officers, the fines for all kinds of violations, especially toll evasion, have also increased.
More than 300 tickets are issued a day for anyone trying to get into Subway without paying. An increase of 54% compared to 2021. This is essential when taking into account the fiscal hole in which the MTA finds itself.
