NYC subway crime spikes in week following mayor’s vow to make transit safer

New York recorded a 30 per cent increase in major crimes on the subway system during the first week of a new safety push

The new subway safety plan by New York mayor Eric Adams failed to get off to a good start in its first week of operation as crime spiked.

The mayor announced plans to dispatch police, outreach workers and mental health experts to combat the increasing crime in the city’s subways.

While still in the earliest days of the operation, the city saw a 30 per cent increase in transit crime during the first week of mobilisation.

According to NYPD CompStat data, there were 55 major transit crimes over the week starting 21 February compared to 42 during the previous week.

The 55 recorded incidents of grand larceny, felony assaults and robberies represented a 205 per cent increase over the 18 major crimes recorded during the same week in February 2021, according to the CompStat data.

The past week’s crime spread mostly across lower Manhattan and the Bronx, plus a cluster in downtown Brooklyn and some areas of Queens.

CompStat data (NYPD)

The "Subway Safety Plan" will deploy 30 joint response teams reaching out to the homeless, with a focus on the A, E, 1, 3, N and R lines.

Mr Adams said the transit system is "the lifeblood of our city" and gave his word to make safe the New York subway, which the New York Daily News reported saw its highest number of assaults since 1997.

"We are not going to live in fear and frustration that we can’t seem to get our system safe and operating correctly," the former transit police officer said last week.

"We are not going to wait until someone shoves a person onto the tracks, we’re being proactive and we are going to engage with New Yorkers who are unhoused or dealing with a mental health crisis."

The push for safety comes after a series of high-profile cases in which people have been pushed onto the subway tracks, which has been steadily rising from 20 in 2019 to 30 last year.

In 2022, a 40-year-old woman was pushed into an oncoming R train at Times Square, and a 61-year-old man was pushed onto the tracks a week later.

As part of the plan to increase safety, New York will trial platform barriers at Times Square, Third Avenue and Sutphin Boulevard.