Gov. Hochul said the state will be paying to put police on every overnight subway train in NYC for the next six months, “to reduce crime and the fear of crime” in the MTA’s mass transit system.
“I want to see more uniformed police officers,” Hochul said Tuesday in her annual State of the State address. “Not just on the platforms, but more importantly on every single train overnight — 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. — for the next six months.”
“The state will support these efforts financially,” she said, calling the state of the subway system “chaos.”
The announcement comes just one month after Hochul said she was deploying 250 additional National Guard troops to the system for the holidays — not because the system was in chaos, she said at the time, but because her March 2024 deployment of 750 soldiers had been successful in driving down crime.
Unlike the guard deployment, NYPD officers have full jurisdiction on the subways, and are able to make arrests. It was not immediately clear if all officers would be NYPD officers, nor what it would cost to deploy the officers to hundreds of tours patrolling the subway’s trains in pairs from dusk until dawn.
FILE – A NYPD officer checks a subway train as it pulls into the Union Square subway station in Manhattan. (Barry Williams for New York Daily News)
Ten people were murdered in the subway system last year — most recently the random, gruesome immolation of a homeless New Jersey woman asleep on a Brooklyn train. That’s up from five murders in 2023. Burglaries, robberies and grand larcenies dropped last year, while felonious and misdemeanor assaults remained steady.
The Governor also called for the installation of passive platform barriers — meant to protect riders from falling or being pushed onto the tracks — at 100 additional stations. The barriers, first installed last January, are currently in place at 14 of the system’s 472 stations.
Hochul and MTA officials have repeatedly touted the importance of increasing not just physical security on the subway, but the perception as well.
To that end, Hochul said she would be directing the MTA to install brighter LED lighting at every subway station by the end of the year.
Hochul also called for the installation of new turnstiles to discourage subway fare jumpers, a project the MTA has floated since May 2023.
“Shameless fare evaders will finally be stopped with modernized gates,” Hochul said. “This will make the subway less chaotic, and also help strengthen the financial footing of the MTA.”
The agency loses an estimated $285 million in lost subway fares annually.
MTA officials said Tuesday that the new fare-gates would be installed in 20 stations this year and 20 stations next year. Straphangers can expect to see them soon at the 42 St. Port Authority station of the A, C and E trains, the Delancey St. – Essex St. station of the F, M, J and Z trains, and the Roosevelt Ave. station on the No. 7, E, F, M and R lines.
Hochul also took aim at homelessness and mental illness on the subway, reiterating her support for an expansion of the state’s laws governing the involuntary commitment of mentally ill people.
“We need to expand involuntary commitment into a hospital to include someone who does not have the mental capacity to care for themselves — such as refusing help for the basics: clothing, food, shelter, medical care,” she said Tuesday.
The controversial policy, floated last month, has attracted pushback from civil libertarians, health advocates and others.
“Critics will say this criminalizes poverty or homelessness — I say that is flat out wrong,” Hochul said. “This is about having the humanity and the compassion to help people incapable of helping themselves.”