Home » NYC subway to prioritize safety

The Big Appleā€™s skyrocketing crime rate may stymie its attempt to claw back economically from the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders said Sunday ā€” as they underscored the importance of subway safety.

Partnership for New York City President Kathy Wylde told host John Catsimatidis of WABC 770ā€™s ā€œThe Cats Roundtableā€ that helping commuters feel safe is vital to bringing white-collar workers back to work ā€” a point echoed later on the show by MTA Chairman Janno Lieber.

ā€œPeople are absolutely outraged that weā€™ve allowed our city to deteriorate to the point that we have,ā€ said Wylde, who heads the cityā€™s main business group. ā€œItā€™s not just gun violence. Weā€™re talking about just a general deterioration in the feeling that we are safe walking the streets, riding the subways, safe from disease and safe from harassment, from assault and and worse.ā€

Wylde then took aim at the stateā€™s lawmakers and recent criminal justice reforms that have let many repeat offenders walk free ā€” including Frank Abrowka, the sicko charged with smearing his own feces on a straphangerā€™s face last month.

ā€œWe seem to have made some mistakes, both in legislation and an implementation on some of these policies,ā€ she said ā€” specifically calling on the state Legislature to change discovery laws that many prosecutors claim make it prohibitively difficult to try cases.

“Nowhere is the situation more serious than in mass transit in our subway.ā€

She continued, ā€œWe donā€™t want people going to jail because theyā€™re poor and canā€™t pay bail. We donā€™t want people going to jail because theyā€™re sick and need mental health treatment. But we want people to behave themselves.ā€

In a separate interview, Lieber said riders are concerned about safety in general ā€” as well as fare beaters and the presence of mentally ill people underground.

ā€œI am not a criminal justice expert, and Iā€™m not here to lobby for any particular law. All I can do is speak for the riders, which is that they want to see the rule about paying fares enforced,ā€ Lieber said. ā€œThe vast majority of people who pay the fare have to feel like itā€™s a fair system, and theyā€™re not suckers because they pay. They got to see that the rules are being enforced, and Iā€™m counting on the city and the NYPD to do just that.ā€

New York City has struggled with a recent surge in subway attacks, including the January murder of Michelle Go, who was shoved in front of an oncoming train in Times Square. Martial Simon, a homeless man with a history of mental illness, has been charged in her death.

ā€œWe just cannot accept a situation where riders are being attacked, or even just made to feel really vulnerable in New York City subways,ā€ Lieber told Catsimatidis. ā€œItā€™s essential to our economic recovery that people feel comfortable riding the system.ā€

Wylde, meanwhile, struck a positive note as New York reemerges from the spike in COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant, saying the Big Appleā€™s comeback ā€œis real this time.ā€

ā€œWeā€™ve had a couple of false starts,ā€ she said. ā€œIt looks like by the end of March, weā€™ll have at least 50 percent of the office workers back in the office every day, and weā€™ll continue to build from there.ā€

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