NEW YORK (WABC) – On Monday morning, the New York City Council held a joint oversight hearing with the NYPD and the president of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on subway safety.
The hearing came just hours after a man was slashed while riding the Manhattan subway.
It comes as many New Yorkers say they don’t feel safe on trains after an increase in violent attacks on trains this year.
The last incident happened around 1:30 am when a man was cut with a box knife at the train station not far from the City Hall.
Police say a 64-year-old man was cut on the nose with a box cutter after an argument with another man on the northbound 4 train.
After the fight, the victim fled to the Bowling Green station, police said. The suspect was last photographed wearing a green jacket.
The MTA announced that crime on the transit system dropped 13% last month compared to October.
“We had several weeks in November where we had the lowest crime rate per million riders since before COVID,” MTA Chairman Jano Lieber said. “This is by no means the time to declare victory, but we are headed in the right direction.”
Since September, state and local leaders have released plans to keep all New Yorkers safe on public transportation.
Some of those plans include adding cameras to every subway car and more police officers on subway platforms across the city.
Lieber noted that the additional officers on the platform have already had a noticeable impact on transit crime.
“The NYPD has been great,” Lieber said. “What happened a couple of weeks ago, I don’t want people to forget, the governor and the mayor took the podium and announced that they were putting 1,200 more police officers into the transit system. And so, in the following month, crime in the field of transit decreased by 13%.”
Despite the drop, many New Yorkers say they want to see more changes to start feeling safer.
“I mean the homeless people that they have on the street that they call crazy, they need to find more shelters for them and there won’t be as many people on the street,” resident David Wurrell said.
READ ALSO | A New York City Council committee is holding hearings on a bill to end criminal background checks on renters
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