New York leaders on Friday released a plan to strictly enforce rules on the New York City subway as part of an aggressive effort to remove homeless people from the city’s sprawling transit system.
“No more just doing whatever you want,” said the New York City mayor, Eric Adams, at a press conference announcing the plan on Friday in a subway station in lower Manhattan. “Those days are over. Swipe your MetroCard, ride the system and get off at your destination. That’s what this administration is saying.”
New York police department (NYPD) officers will be given a “clear mandate” to enforce the subway’s rules of conduct, which includes prohibitions against lying down, creating an unsanitary environment and smoking or openly using drugs.
The plan comes in light of an uptick in felony assaults in the subway which, while rare, were up 25% in 2021 compared with 2019. Last month, the death of an Asian American woman who was shoved off a subway platform into the path of a train prompted forceful promises from Adams, who took office in early January, to increase law enforcement in the subway system. Adams in January vowed to increase subway inspections and add 1,000 more cops to the system.
Under the plan, NYPD officers will undergo additional training on enforcing the rules of conduct. The city said that officers will be stationed at the end of subway lines, where all passengers will be required – rather than encouraged – to leave the train.
Along with increasing enforcement, Adams and New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, said the city and state will expand outreach services to unhoused people who may be living within the subway system. In addition to the nearly 50,000 people who live in the city’s shelter system, an estimated 2,400 people live unsheltered in the city, many turning to the subways at night for warmth.
More response teams will offer mental health support to those unhoused, increasing the number of mental health professionals that respond to non-violent 911 calls and expanding “safe haven” beds that provide shelter and on-site social services. The city says it will also create new drop-in centers close to key subway stations that will provide “an immediate pathway for individuals to come indoors”.
“This is not about arresting people, this is about arresting a problem. We’re going to correct the conditions,” Adams said on Friday. “It is cruel and inhumane to allow unhoused people to live on the subway, and unfair to paying passengers and transit workers who deserve a clean, orderly and safe environment. The days of turning a blind eye to this growing problem are over.”
At the press conference, Adams also noted that “it’s a big mistake not enforcing fare evasion”, saying that he plans to raise the issue of possible action against fare evasion with the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg.
Adams’s plan is just the latest in the long history of police enforcement in the subway system, which is run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), a state-level agency. In 2019, former governor Andrew Cuomo stirred controversy by vowing a crackdown on homelessness and fare evasion in the subway system by adding more police officers to patrol the system.
Some advocates for unhoused people living in the city say that, given its historic shortage of stable temporary and permanent housing, increased enforcement on the subway does not solve homelessness.
“Forcing people off the trains into the freezing cold does not help the homeless. Policing does not get people safely housed,” said Peter Malvan, a homeless advocate with the Urban Justice Center’s Safety Net Project, in a statement. “This approach is wrongheaded, unlawful and is a frightening path to criminalization.”
New leaders now say that safety concerns have held back efforts to increase ridership in the subway system, which hovers just above 50% of pre-pandemic levels.
“People tell me about their fear of using the system, and we’re going to ensure that fear is not New York’s reality,” Adams said. “We are back again, and it’s imperative we have the right response that has the combination of being human but clear.”