The transit agency in charge of the New York City subway has now been forced to hire private security to be posted on its trains in order to try and lure back riders who have been scared away by a historic rise in crime in the big apple.
As Fox News reports:
Officials at the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees the subway, have been increasing the number of guards while calling on the city to provide additional police officers following assaults on staff, instances of riders being shoved from station platforms, the killing of two homeless people and a customer survey indicating rising concern about safety.
Sarah Feinberg, the MTA’s interim head of subway operations, said guards were hired early in the Covid-19 pandemic, when ridership plummeted, to address crime and security issues in near-deserted stations. Their ranks swelled to 100, and by the end of this month, they are expected to have doubled to 200.
The cost for the guards is a small fraction of the authority’s annual $17 billion operating budget, but a significant expense for an agency that has balanced its budget using billions of dollars of federal Covid-19 relief funds.
“The last thing I want to do is to devote precious resources in the middle of a financial crisis to additional security contractors,” Ms. Feinberg said. “But I’m also not going to be in a position where my customers and workforce continue to feel uncomfortable and unsafe.”
The guards’ primary function will be to deal with issues arising from disturbances caused by homelessness and vagrancy which have been plaguing the city since the start of the pandemic.
They should let the citizens of New York be armed and protect themselves
Ain’t gonna happen. Not unless the Sheeple there grow brains and stop hiring fine specimens like Cuomo and DeBlasio.
Gee, New Yorkers, enjoying the savings from the NYPD budget cuts?