NEW YORK — While a provision for the hiring of police officers led to a split vote, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s board passed its $17 billion budget for 2020 on Wednesday. The budget sets no service cuts, a reduction of 2,700 jobs by the consolidation of agency back offices, and a 2% wage increase over the next four years for members of Transport Workers Union Local 100.
The budget provides for hiring an additional 500 officers for the subways, Metro-North, Long Island Rail Road, and MTA bus lines. The new officers will combat growing homelessness, fare evasion, crime, and employee assaults. Fare evasion is now costing the MTA $300 million a year by its own estimates.
That provision led the three board members nominated by New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio to vote against the budget, while the nine board members nominated by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo voted in favor. The three members voting no echoed activists and watchdog groups, who felt that the new officers would would unfairly target minorities. During the board meeting, seven people were ejected for shouting protests about the new police hires. Five were cited with summonses for disorderly conduct, MTA spokesperson Tim Minton said.
“There’s just too much history of abuse here for me to let it pass,” board member David Jones said of the minority community’s sensitivity to past police incidents.
MTA Chairman and CEO Patrick Foye, asked after the meeting if the new officers would make the subways and buses safer for riders and workers, said, “The short answer is yes, absolutely.”
Before the meeting, MTA released findings of an audit by independent accounting firm Crowe LLP on the capital program planning process. The audit had been mandated by Governor Cuomo and the NY State Legislature this year. The audit found the MTA capital planning process to be “consistent with industry-leading practices” and required no modifications to the upcoming 2020-2024 Capital Plan. [See “MTA authorizes $515 billion for a new five-year capital program,” Trains News Wire, Sept. 25, 2019.]
The subways are for transportation and should not be seen as overflow homeless shelters. To me, seeing it as shelter is degrading to both the riders and the homeless. I don’t know if more officers are needed, but more enforcement is definitely needed. Simply walk the trains and anyone lying down across seats (a violation of the posted rules) is put outside the fare barrier. Have plain clothes officers ride and just wait for “I’m sorry to bother everyone…” and put the panhandlers outside the fare barrier too. There needs to be resources and attention to the rising homeless numbers here (personally I support ACE as one avenue) but housing in subways is not acceptable.
500 new police officers is just the tip of the iceberg. Twice that many wouldn’t solve the homeless and crime problems in the NYC subways. I’m thankful for Uber and Lyft so that I can avoid them. While it doesn’t relate to the subways, the murder of the Barnard College freshman in Morningside Park a couple of weeks ago by three young black kids shows what happens when liberal fools like DeBlasio get in charge. Giuliani cleaned up the subways and now DeBlasio has them reverting to the bad old days of the 1970s. And, if minorities are being targeted then that is because they are committing the majority of the crimes.
Having enjoyed 3 weeks of MTA subway, including the well executed and very well received operation of the “Holiday Trains” running historic equipment, including the 1930 M2 (no speed governor on that baby), spending more $$ on police is mere PR.
The three members voting no echoed activists and watchdog groups, who felt that the new officers would would unfairly target minorities. During the board meeting, seven people were ejected for shouting protests about the new police hires. Five were cited with summonses for disorderly conduct, MTA spokesperson Tim Minton said.
“There’s just too much history of abuse here for me to let it pass,” board member David Jones said of the minority community’s sensitivity to past police incidents.
So Mr Jones where’s all this history of abuse? Are police perfect? No, but majority of the time there’s no issue… It seems Mr. Jones would rather continue to push the dirt under the rug? “Minority crime rates are much higher than surrounding areas.. These are facts based on FBI reported crime stats…