NYC subway safety: Adams' efforts and public skepticism
NEW YORK (PIX11) -- The Adams Administration’s ongoing efforts to make the case that the subway system is indeed safer overall.
Those efforts are consistently met with a potent combination of perception and traumatic personal experiences - with unprovoked attacks that continue to stand in the way of a collective “job well done.”
“I was assaulted on the 50th Street platform. A man hurled a light fixture at my head and knocked me out,” said Roxy.
Roxy, whom we met on a local No. 1 train on Monday, says she is encouraged by the NYPD’s plan to deploy 200 additional officers to ride subway cars and walk the platforms in the city’s 50 highest-crime-affected stations.
But, she describes the initiative as nothing more than a stop-gap.
“I want long-term solutions, and I want to see some sense of security and safety for us riding the trains,” said Roxy.
We began our Tuesday afternoon underground, at the Times Square station – on that top-50 list.
We did not see any officers on the platforms or the trains.
But to be fair - even when the new deployment is in full effect, cops still won’t be able to be everywhere, all the time, in a sprawling system consisting of 472 stations.
For long-time New Yorkers like Staten Island-based caterer Aretha Mabry, high-profile, unprovoked, “one-off” incidents still have a way of rattling their sense of security.
“Once these doors close, we are by ourselves. Sometimes I’m nervous to get on the train. Especially what happened to that lady a couple of weeks ago – that she was set on fire,” said Mabry.
Mayor Eric Adams, who addressed reporters Tuesday, defended the 200 subway deployment.
“I mean, the burning of someone on the subway system, shoving on the subway tracks, a slashing, being punched when you read that stuff, or you’re in the subway system, and you see someone yelling and screaming, walking down the tracks – you know, you don’t want to hear about the numbers only. So my job is to make sure that I do the substantive things to bring down crime – which we have done. But I have to do the symbolic things that make people feel safe.” said Adams.