Assaults are surging this year in the subway system — and critics fear it’s getting worse with overcrowding caused by congestion pricing.
Felony assaults are up 9% so far this year, going from 168 to 193 over the same period last year, according to the NYPD data. And they’re up a staggering 55% over 2019, the data show.
Of the felony assaults, 54 or about 30%, were against police officers, according to the NYPD.
Misdemeanor assaults have fallen 2% so far this year from 466 to 456, but are up 3% from six years ago.
“This should not be a Hobson‘s choice, but that is what Gov. Hochul has made it,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island) told The Post, referring to the governor’s support for the wildly controversial $9 congestion tax in Manhattan. “People either need to cough up thousands of dollars a year or risk their safety.”
Those fears turned to reality Friday morning when a 38-year-old man was stabbed to death after he got into a dispute with a rider who stepped on his foot on a downtown No. 5 train at the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall Station in Manhattan, police sources said.
Commuters — especially those who traded in their car keys for MetroCards — were alarmed by the assault spike.
“I think it’s gonna keep getting worse with more people down here,” said G.J. Emajli Kraku, a plumber who travels to the city from Bellmore, LI. “I used to drive into the city every day, but it was going to cost 120 bucks to take the car in.”
Hochul said on the state’s website last month that subway and bus ridership was up 6% and 9%, respectively, since the toll was enacted Jan. 5.
City Council Minority Leader Joann Ariola (R-Queens) called the subway the “city’s de facto mental institution and homeless shelter, except without the doctors, beds, or security.
“Forcing more New Yorkers underground with this ridiculous congestion pricing scheme is going to put more people into contact with the dangerously unwell,” the councilwoman said. “That’s a recipe for disaster.”
City officials have been trying to stem the rising fears.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch has ramped up the number of cops underground and ordered them to even patrol trains. The NYPD has also been drilling down on quality of life crimes — laying on benches, farebeating and other violations.
And Mayor Eric Adams kicked off the Partnership Assistance for Transit Homelessness (PATH) to aid the homeless by sending cops with outreach workers into the subways.
News of an increased police presence was a welcomed sight to nurse Annemarie Lawson, 64, who travels by subway from Chelsea to Mount Eden in the Bronx.
“I have noticed that they’re putting police on the subways, and that’s really helpful because I come down here at 5 a.m. and it’s really desolate, so I ride with them when they’re down there,” she said.
But Lawson still has “an overall feeling of insecurity.”
“People carry knives all the time, it’s really hard to stop them, and that’s really scary,” she said.
Subway rider LaShawn Russell said he’s forced to keep his head on a swivel. The 34-year-old treks to NYC from Rahlway, NJ, most weekdays where he works in home health care.
“I see crazy s–t in the subway every time I take it,” Russell said.
Alisha, 18, commutes from Uniondale, LI, to John Jay College every weekday, where she is studying international criminal justice. She said the rising crime makes her “really uncomfortable.”
“It’s started to become more and more often, and I think we’re just getting used to it, but that’s not right – we shouldn’t be getting used to having threats on the subway all the time,” she said.
“Too many people are getting hurt.”
The MTA referred questions to the NYPD, which pointed out that overall subway crime was down in the first quarter of this year to the second lowest level in 27 years, with major crime dropping by 18% from 568 to 465.