Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul joined MTA officials and law enforcement to highlight a FY 2026 New York State Budget deal that delivers on the Governor’s public safety commitments to continue making our subways safer for all riders and transit workers. These major investments increase the presence of law enforcement, make crucial safety upgrades in protective barriers and LED lighting and continue cracking down on fare evasion. New York City’s Subways continue to experience the lowest levels of crime overall outside the pandemic since the 1990s — and as a result of the Governor’s continued efforts to prioritize public safety and make our subways safer, crime is down 11 percent since last year and down 16 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels.
B-ROLL of the Governor taking the subway, meeting construction workers and subway riders is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).
VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).
AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.
PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
It's great to see all of you and you're really making a profound difference here. Always happy to be back riding our subway system. Nothing like it in the world. I want to thank Janno Lieber for leading an organization that has been down and out and now it's back. And I'm so proud to say that we've achieved so much together over my last three and a half years to empower the MTA to head on a path that they know is sustainable and delivers the highest quality of service to the people he cares the most about. And those are our commuters. Let's give round applause to Janno Lieber here today.
Michael Kemper, our chief of security. Thank you, Michael, for finding every possible way we can to protect our commuters, our riders, our visitors. Superintendent Steven James, thank you for responding whenever I need you. You've been asked to do the extraordinary, whether it's helping with gun interdiction on the streets to calming down prison strikes and right here in our subway. So I thank you and all the members of our State Police team for the extraordinary work you do every day. Brigadier General Isabel Smith, the director of joint staff and commander of the National Guard. I want to thank the National Guard for their presence here, making people feel calmer and safer.
And I've heard that from moms who literally come up to me and say, “I feel a lot better having my child go to the subway when I see more people in uniform. And you help make that happen.” So let's hear it for our National Guard and our MTA police, our state police and to everyone who cares so deeply about the success of this subway system.
It may be overstated, but this is the beating heart of this city. This is what sets us apart from all others. Getting people anywhere they want to go within minutes. It's extraordinary. And beneath every day – underneath these towering skyscrapers in our busy streets – millions of people for every walk of life come together. They head off to work. They head off to school. They visit families and friends. They go to doctor's appointments.
And the experience, all the wonder that the city has to offer. But I'll tell you this – when I first took office three and a half years ago, this system faced a triple threat. First of all, subway crime was raging, absolutely raging. I would say as an aftermath – an outgrowth – of the pandemic, of which we know we were the epicenter for the nation. Ridership was down, it was absolutely lagging. And the MTA faced a looming fiscal crisis that threatened to bring this system to a screeching halt. Those were real challenges, but we were undaunted.
We knew we needed to lean hard into them and find solutions that would work. So we secured significant recurring funding to save the MTA from literally going off the fiscal cliff. We got it done a few years ago, and we took bold, decisive action to protect riders.
And you see it, as I mentioned, with the presence of law enforcement on the platforms and in the trains. You see it in the National Guard presence and you see it in the new platform, barriers and cameras docked in every single subway car. And I want to say we had a goal to get it done in a few years, and I want to thank the MTA for rising to the challenge I put out and said, “No, we're going to shave off a lot of time. I want a camera in every single train so people feel secure and our law enforcement can reach and find and prosecute the law breakers.”
So we made some real progress there as well. Now, subway crime, now, is down 16 percent compared to 2019. Why do I go back to 2019? I subtract it out. The higher years of the pandemic, because otherwise this would be a lot bigger drop. But I want to deal in realities.
What was the world like before the pandemic when people were not so anxious about going on the subway? We are now down 16 percent compared to 2019. And just from last year, we'd already started seeing dramatic downward trends. We're still 11 percent lower than last year at this time. So ridership continues to rise. Ticking up seven percent year over year.
But I'll say this, I more than anyone know, there's still more work to do. Just last week, a man was stabbed to death on the five train, right in the middle of rush hour – a galling attack that shocked so many riders. That's proof. That's proof we still have more work to do. I acknowledge that. And in January, I came here and up, I outlined a plan to ramp up our efforts.
I vow to fund the state funding for the first time in history, not just MTA police, not just state police, but funding the MTA – picking up the costs of the MTA – so there’s two NYPD police officers on every overnight train. When you see the police officers, NYPD, on those overnight trains starting at nine o'clock at night till 6:00 a.m. that is the New York State taxpayers working hard to make sure that this lifeline of our economic heartbeat is still viable and thriving. So we did that.
We also vowed to make more security upgrades and I vowed to end the insanity of violent criminals getting off with crimes because of technicalities, whether it happens on the subway or happens on our streets. And I vowed to keep people who have severe mental health problems who are in our subways, on our streets. I said, we vowed to get them off these city streets and subway stations and in our trains – and get them into a hospital bed where they can get some help.
I thought it was cruel to abandon them. Yes, they have civil rights. Of course they do. But some people don't have the mental capacity to make decisions for their own health and wellbeing. How do we abandon them? That's not what a civilized society does. And we said no more.
And I'm proud to say with our new budget, securely in place – almost done – we delivered on these promises. And when it comes to public safety, I refuse to back down. Absolutely refuse to back down. So let me break down what we accomplished.
First, an additional $45 million for Joint Task Force Empire Shield. That's our National Guard. We want to make sure they're funded and can remain here. This is the elite unit that protects New York City, including our subways. The National Guard members you see are an important part of that. $77 million in this year's budget to make sure we can continue funding those NYPD on the overnight trains. These officers really are the unsung heroes. Those late night rides have to be stressful. Sometimes you walk into a car and you don't know the unknown. It's a frightening dynamic, and I want to thank them. Because they're protecting the nurses and doctors who are on the midnight shift. The cooks and bartenders who clock out late, and all the people who have to rise before the sun are construction workers, our bakers, our baristas.These are the people who keep our city running and we must keep them safe.
We also, as I mentioned, are taking the steps to take care of those languishing with mental health problems. And I'll say this, we're going to make a difference in their lives. We're going to make sure they get the help they need, but we couldn't do it up until now. Here's why. Because we didn't have the system in place to care for them. Because of decades of disinvestment in our system, our health care system, our mental health system – that we didn't have enough beds, we didn't have enough practitioners, we didn't have enough people with long-term strategies and supportive housing.
And I'm so proud after the first billion dollars investment I made back when I was brand new Governor. We are now positioned to be able to give these people the help they need. That's why we can welcome them in and take good care of them. We're also strengthening Kendra's Law to ensure those with serious mental illness receive consistent treatment in the community so they don't fall between the cracks.
Also, investing $30 million in our homeless outreach teams, these safe option support teams. My God, they're doing God's work every single day you see them. I've come to thank them. And they're so compassionate, and they don't give up on anybody. They believe that everybody has value and they want to help them retrieve their full potential despite how hard life has been for them. These are compassionate public servants who've helped over 1,000 New Yorkers escape lives on the street and find, get this permanent housing. 1,000 people who are long term chronically homeless right here — now have a home to call and make sure it's a safe place for them to rest their heads at night. Because you know what? It's not just about public safety for all of us. It's about human dignity and giving people what they deserve.
As I mentioned, we reformed our criminal justice laws because – while a lot of people aren't quite sure what discovery laws are, and that's okay – what happens under changes that were made back in 2019? I will say this, and I've said this from the beginning, there were many changes that were necessary. The system was absolutely skewed against the defendants, and that was unfair. But we also know that the pendulum has swung way too far, and now the defense lawyers are able to lie and wait literally the night before a case is supposed to be presented and raise objections that a judge must say, based on the law, you must have this case dismissed now because the clock has run out. Or if there's minor technicalities and the cases are legendary, you hear the reasons that cases are thrown out, whether it's a crime in the subway or domestic violence incidents. You want to make sure that people do not escape because of a senseless loophole that we have now fixed. That's how you start making people safer. That's how you hold people accountable.
And if you wear a mask to hide your identity while you're committing a crime, you'll face an additional charge. That's important because we've seen in the subway people masking themselves, trying to evade the cameras that we put in place. But if you're hiding under a mask, how are our police supposed to identify you and make sure you don't hurt somebody else the next day? This is another force for ensuring that we have public safety.
But also here's the music to Janno’s ears – we are fully funding the $68 billion Capital Plan, and I want to thank the leaders in the Legislature for working hard with me. It's been an interesting, always, always interesting process, but we're also making sure through that we're also upgrading $1 billion more in crucial physical security upgrades. So what we're going to do, we'll have platform barriers at 100 additional stations. LED lighting. I want them brighter. I want people to see. We'll also continue swapping out the aging turnstiles. Guess what? Ones that are hard to evade, ones you can't hurdle over or crawl under. So we're going to be getting those out there. So those shameless fare invaders and everybody's doing this who create unnecessary stress and chaos for the other riders who are actually doing what they're supposed to do.So we're going to stop them as well.
We're also going to make sure the MTA – we fully fund their repairs. And something that's near and dear to my heart since I proposed it a few years ago, is to do the Interborough Express once and for all the money is there because as much as we love Manhattan, people who are trying to go from Brooklyn to Queen should not have to make us stop here first, let's inject some common sense into our residents lives and let them have the quality of life they deserve, and less time traveling from one borough to another.
Making ADA stations ADA accessible and enhancing, enhancing service to and from the Hudson Valley. So we're going to continue with these goals and I'm always looking forward to partnering with the MTA as we go forth for the years ahead to make good on all these financial commitments.
But mark my words. I'll do everything in my power to ensure that the people of this city and this state are safe. And I'll put the investments where they need to go. I'll make the changes in the law where necessary because we won't stop until every single person has what they deserve – the right to be safe in their homes and their communities, and in our subways.
Thank you very much. Let me hand this now over to Janno Lieber, the Chairman and CEO of the MTA.