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NEW YORK—“We don’t want to go back to the ‘70s and ’80s, when people were afraid to ride on buses and subways,” said Councilmember James Vacca during a City Hall hearing on the safety of the people who keep New Yorkers moving.
The Monday hearing was held to discuss incidents where transit workers have been punched, stabbed, or otherwise abused.
There were 69 physical assaults in the first nine months of 2011, compared with 57 during the same period in 2010, according to Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) officials present at the hearing. The MTA is responsible for the majority of transportation systems in the state, including the subway, buses, bridges, and tunnels.
The officials said there were “a litany of reasons” for the increase, though any reasons put forth would be “speculation.”
“We’re maybe for the first time getting accurate data” due to better procedures being put in place to report incidents, suggested a security official.
On April 29, 2007, MTA employee Marvin Franklin died after being hit by a G train, five days after a fellow worker died—also struck by a train.
