Federal Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told the MTA that its federal funding could hang in the balance if it did not get tougher on crime and homelessness in the New York City subway — despite the fact that major subway crimes are down 22% from this time last year.
“The trend of violent crime, homelessness, and other threats to public safety on one of our nation’s most prominent metro systems is unacceptable,” Duffy said in a statement released Tuesday night. “After years of soft-on-crime policies, our department is stepping in to restore order.”
But by the numbers, any lack of order seems to already be on the mend.
As of Monday, major subway crimes — murders, rapes, assaults, robberies, burglaries and grand larcenies — are down 21.9% from where they were this week in 2024, according to data from the NYPD. Major crimes are also down 18.7% from 2019, the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a Tuesday letter addressed to MTA chariman Janno Lieber, Duffy demanded reams of information from the transit agency on assaults, fare evasion and subway surfing, as well as the MTA’s efforts to curb those problems. The transportation secretary also told Lieber to provide an accounting of all MTA money spent on safety and fare enforcement on the subway system.
Duffy gave the MTA a March 31 deadline for the requested information, and said federal funding could be on the line.
“I appreciate your prompt attention to this matter to avoid further consequences, up to and including redirecting or withholding funding,” Duffy wrote.
Nearly all of the information requested by the feds, including crime stats and funding breakdowns, is already made publicly available by the MTA and NYPD.
John McCarthy, the MTA’s head of external relations, said in a statement Wednesday that his agency was already successfully reducing crime, and would share that information with the feds.
“We are happy to discuss with Secretary Duffy our efforts, alongside the NYPD, to reduce crime and fare evasion,” McCarthy said. “The good news is numbers are moving in the right direction: crime is down 40% compared to the same period in 2020 right before the pandemic, and so far in 2025 there are fewer daily major crimes in transit than any non-pandemic year ever. Moreover, in the second half of last year subway fare evasion was down 25% after increasing dramatically during COVID.”
The MTA has previously said it hopes to get $14 billion in federal funding toward its five-year, $68 billion capital plan, which funds large scale projects on the agency’s subways, commuter rail lines, bus network and river crossings.