Mayor Adams Says He also Feels Scared on the Subway, where he sees the Crime and Disorder

By Yehudit Garmaise

After taking the subway to work for throughout his first few weeks in office, Mayor Eric Adams admitted today that he sees what New Yorkers have been saying they see when they use public transit.

“Day One: Jan. 1, when I took the train, I saw the homelessness, the yelling, and the screaming: early in the morning,” reported Mayor Adams this morning. “Crimes right outside the platform.”

Mayor Adams’ admission of reality comes just days after a 40-year Michelle Alyssa Go, who had volunteered to help homeless people for 10 years, was pushed to her death by an insane homeless person at the Times Square station, and a homeless person, who had passed away on an uptown A train, was found at Jay St.-MetroTech station in Flatbush.

Yesterday, the NYPD reported that violence on the city’s public transit system continues to spike: including during the first two weeks of Adams’ administration. 

Mayor Adams’ candor comes in refreshingly sharp contrast to former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s frequently repeated dismissals of New Yorkers’ complaints about the subway, which he often claimed was “safer than it had been in years,” despite a near constant report of shovings and stabbings.  

On April 27, 2021, for instance, after a series of violent criminals harmed New Yorkers in the subways, essential workers, who rely on public transit more than other New Yorkers, were so disturbed by what they saw and felt in the subways that New York City labor leaders came together to write a letter that urged the former mayor “at least temporarily” provide more police officers to the 500 that had recently been added.”

While de Blasio rarely rode the subway, after Mayor Adams, who served as a transit cop for 22 years, swiped his MetroCard every day for two weeks, he said that he does not feel safe on the trains.

“We are going to drive down crime to make sure New Yorkers feel safe in our subway system, and they don’t feel that way now,” the mayor said. “I don’t feel that way when I take the train, every day, or when I am moving throughout our transportation system.”

“Our subways must be safe from actual crime, which we are going to do,” Mayor Adams said today at City Hall, “and those who feel as though there is a total level of disorder in our subway system also must feel safe.

“We know we have a job to do: That is our battle, and that is what I am going to do as the mayor of the city of New York.”

“I think Mayor Adams is showing that he gets it,” MTA Chairman Janno Lieber told the New York Post. “He gets how New Yorkers are feeling.”