Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sent a letter to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) demanding information on crime in New York City’s transit system, including expenditures on programs to combat it. If Duffy isn’t satisfied, the MTA could lose funding.
There’s more than meets the eye in this faceoff. The Trump administration has given the MTA until Friday to abandon the congestion pricing scheme enacted in January. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and MTA leaders have sued to keep it.
Duffy’s letter is a silver bullet. If Hochul doesn’t abandon congestion pricing, Duffy can find other ways to hurt the MTA by cutting funds for related transit programs.
“The trend of violent crime, homelessness, and other threats to public safety on one of our nation’s most prominent metro systems is unacceptable. After years of soft-on-crime policies, our Department is stepping in to restore order,” Duffy wrote.
“Commuters are sick and tired of feeling like they have to jeopardize their safety to get to work, go to school, or to travel around the city. We will continue to fight to ensure their federal tax dollars are going towards a crime-free commute,” he added.
The MTA relies on billions of dollars a year from Washington to keep the trains running and the transit authority is looking for another $14 billion in its next five-year capital budget.
Fox News reports, “Duffy’s letter requests the MTA’s data on fare evasion, worker assaults, customer assaults, and police patrols. It also requests an accounting of how the MTA has used federal funding to address safety and security in the city’s transportation system.”
The MTA has made a big deal in recent months about improving security on the subway. “Crime is down 40% compared to the same period in 2020 right before the pandemic, and so far in 2025, there are fewer daily major crimes in transit than any non-pandemic year ever,” John J. McCarthy, the chief of policy and external relations at the MTA said, adding that fare evasion is down 25% since COVID.
McCarthy wants New Yorkers to believe the violence on the subway is all in their heads.
McCarthy’s statement echoes claims that MTA head Janno Lieber made in January, when he suggested that recent high-profile subway attacks have “gotten in people’s heads” to make them feel that the subway system is unsafe.
Lieber made the comments during an appearance on the Bloomberg News’ podcast “Bloomberg Talks,” arguing that “the overall stats are positive” on crime.
“Last year, we were actually 12.5% less crime than 2019, the last year before COVID. But there’s no question that some of these high-profile incidents, you know, terrible attacks, have gotten in people’s heads and made the whole system feel less safe,” Lieber said.
While it’s true that a few high-profile violent crimes in recent months have put an exclamation point on how violent the subway is, people don’t need to imagine how unsafe the subway can be. It’s not just the murders, assaults, the attackers who push passengers onto the tracks, the rapes, or the constant harassment by mentally disturbed homeless people.
As almost any strap hanger can tell you, there’s a feeling of dread when entering the subway system. It’s very hard to shake, even if transit cops are around. Those cops can’t be everywhere at once, in every train car, at every subway stop.
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