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New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) head Janno Lieber urged that latest high-profile subway assaults have “gotten in folks’s heads” to make them really feel that the subway system is unsafe.
Lieber spoke to Bloomber Information’ podcast “Bloomberg Talks” Monday to debate a brand new “congestion pricing” plan that prices drivers $9 to cross under Central Park or enter Decrease Manhattan from Brooklyn and New Jersey.
The plan is supposed to incentivize New Yorkers to make use of public transportation. Nevertheless, belief in mass transit, Lieber agreed, has been shaken after assaults on the subway system.
GUARDIAN ANGELS RESUME NEW YORK CITY PATROLS AFTER SUBWAY BURNING DEATH: ‘NEVER SEEN IT THIS BAD’
However, Lieber argued crime has gone down, suggesting the latest viral incidents are giving folks the impression of feeling unsafe.
“The general stats are optimistic,” Lieber stated. “Final yr, we have been truly 12.5% much less crime than 2019, the final yr earlier than COVID. However there is no query that a few of these high-profile incidents, , horrible assaults, have gotten in folks’s heads and made the entire system really feel much less secure.”
Lieber acknowledged the justice system “has to do its job” in ensuring individuals who “have lengthy rap sheets are put away.”
Nonetheless, he insisted, “They’re very, only a few of those people, however they have an effect on folks’s sense of security. And we have to cope with them in a method that protects the riders and the general public.”
The congestion pricing plan took impact quickly after a high-profile case of an unlawful immigrant allegedly setting a girl on fireplace within the NYC subway system final month.
Extra just lately, one man was charged with tried homicide after allegedly pushing a person onto NYC subway tracks.
It additionally follows the high-profile trial of former Marine Daniel Penny, who was charged however discovered not responsible by a jury for his actions in defending subway passengers in 2023 from a mentally unstable homeless man named Jordan Neely, who later died.
HOCHUL’S CHRISTMASTIME BOAST OF SAFER SUBWAY CAME AMID STRING OF ALARMING VIOLENT ATTACKS
In response to the wave of violent crimes, Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul deployed 1,000 Nationwide Guard members to patrol the subway system and directed the MTA to put in safety cameras in subway vehicles.
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