Fewer cops. Better infrastructure.
The other day I did an interview in the Bronx and then walked into the train station to catch the 6 train back home. “Oh good, it’ll be here in 4 minutes,” I thought, after glancing at the sign.
35 minutes later the board just read “Delay.” The intercom said, “Crackle crackle crackle.”
The woman next to me also had no idea what this very important announcement was. It seemed like maybe they were telling us that we had to take a train going in the opposite direction to then catch the 6 from another station? “Crackle crackle crackle,” went the intercom again (for non NYers the intercoms on the trains are tragicomically terrible—you hear some staticky announcement beyond human comprehension and suddenly you’re headed 5 stops past your destination).
You could sense everyone’s anxiety and frustration spike as the platform filled with more people. Mine was, and I had absolutely no time constraints—writers are, as my friend likes to say, poor in money, but time millionaires.
Unhelpfully, the intercom then blasted out police commissioner Keechent Sewell’s message about how the NYPD is keeping New Yorkers safe. I don’t know. I was feeling pretty murderous as a train, somehow, rushed by without stopping.
Over the weekend, in a lame attempt to shut down the campaign of Trumpian dimwit Lee Zeldin, Gov. Kathy Hochul held a joint press conference with Mayor Eric Adams announcing a new initiative to address transit crime.
“My top priority as the governor of the state of New York is to keep New Yorkers safe,” she said. “That means on our streets, in their homes, and on our subways.”
Hochul said the “Cops, Cameras, and Care” plan is a “beefing up” of the police presence on subway platforms and cars.
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