When I took on the role of Metropolitan Transportation Authority chair and CEO, I was clear that to get New Yorkers back to transit, we needed two things — reliable service and a safe system.
We’ve made significant progress on that first point, achieving financial stability in a historic state budget that allowed us not only to maintain levels of service but increase them while delivering the best on-time performance in a decade.
On that second point, Gov. Hochul and Mayor Adams — almost one year ago to the day — launched the Cops, Cameras and Care initiative.
They stood up for the MTA and its riders, saying we need more police in the subways, more security cameras and more care and support for those struggling with homelessness and mental illness in our public space.
Overall numbers
As a result, the system has gotten safer. Transit crime is down 9% compared with pre-pandemic levels, while arrests have increased.
On top of the expanded police presence, there are now more than 11,000 cameras in use system-wide — in mezzanines, on platforms and even on board trains, thanks to some extra investment from the state — that are helping the NYPD catch criminals every day.
The state and city’s increased homeless-outreach resources have led to more than 5,000 people accepting services, and Hochul has prioritized increasing beds and treatment in psychiatric facilities.
Despite those gains, periodically innocent New Yorkers are still victims of unprovoked attacks perpetrated by people very clearly struggling with chronic and severe mental illness.
The latest incident, where a 30-year-old woman was pushed into the side of a moving train at the 53rd Street-Fifth Avenue station, is nothing short of horrific.
I was there in the aftermath with NYPD Transit Bureau Chief Michael Kemper, and my heart broke instantly.
Here was a young woman from Queens, barely older than my daughters, just trying to live her life — like any other New Yorker — and now she’s fighting for her life in the hospital.
The man who shoved her was quickly arrested, but that’s little consolation to the victim’s family and friends — or to me.
I always say, New Yorkers put up with a lot, but we cannot expect them to put up with random acts of violence.
I know I am not a mental-health professional, but there must be a way to speed up the process of getting those struggling with psychosis and similar conditions out of the subway system and into treatment, where they can work at getting well — for their own sake and for the sake of their fellow New Yorkers, who deserve to ride the subway without fear.
New York is an in-person city, whose special sauce depends on our density and on face-to-face interactions.
And if we want people to resume their pre-COVID way of life — in-person work, shopping, theater, restaurants, etc. — we’re going to have to figure out a way to reduce the impact severe mental illness is having on the people who suffer with it and on New Yorkers who share our public spaces.
Janno Lieber is the chair and CEO of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
