City To Crack Down On Subway Rules In New Safety Plan, Adams Says

NEW YORK, NY — A sweeping plan to reach homeless New Yorkers on the city's transit system will include a crackdown on those using the subways for anything but transportation, according to Mayor Eric Adams.

"No more smoking, no more doing drugs, no more sleeping, no more doing barbecues on the subway system — those days are over," Adams said at a press conference Friday. "Swipe your MetroCard, ride the system [and] get off at your destination."

The enforcement of the subway rules, slated to start next week, is part of a "Subway Safety Plan" unveiled by Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday.

The plan will also include 30 new outreach teams who will focus on connecting homeless New Yorkers with housing, mental health treatment and other services, as well as an increase in psychiatric hospital beds.

It comes amid a spike in transit crime this year — including the high-profile murder of straphanger Michelle Go — and a pandemic-driven increase in the number of New Yorkers experiencing homelessness who seek shelter in the city's subway system.

"We are not going to wait until someone shoves a person onto the tracks — we are being proactive," Adams said Friday, referring to the man arrested in Go's death, who had a history of mental health problems.

The new outreach teams will include police officers and staff from the Department of Homeless Services, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and local organizations, according to the plan. The city has also considered adding school nurses to the teams, according to the New York Post, though that was not mentioned in the plan Friday.

The outreach will include "End of the Line" teams that will focus on straphangers still on the trains at their final stop and a subset of teams dedicated to high-need stations including Penn Station, Grand Central Terminal, West Fourth Street, the West 42nd Street Corridor, the Fulton Street Corridor and Jamaica Center, according to the plan.

The plan also includes the creation of "Drop-in-Centers" near subway stations where homeless New Yorkers can explore housing options and three more outreach vans. It will also expand a pilot program removing police from mental health calls to 11 precincts, including Northern Manhattan and the South Bronx.

Friday's announcement comes weeks after Adams and Hochul deployed 1,000 more cops to the city's subway system, a move they said Friday was the "first layer" in their overall safety approach.

Increased enforcement on subways has a fraught history in New York City. Just weeks before the coronavirus struck, many New Yorkers engaged in a massive protest over increased police where they vandalized MTA property, held emergency doors open and didn't pay fare.

Homeless advocates reacted cautiously to the safety plan on Friday.

"Repeating the failed outreach-based policing strategies of the past will not end the suffering of homeless people bedding down on the subway," said Shelly Nortz of the Coalition for the Homeless "Criminalizing homelessness and mental illness is not the answer."

Adams contended Friday his plan will not be "heavy-handed."

"This is not about arresting people, this is about arresting a problem," he said. "We’re not saying if you break a minor infraction we’re going to put handcuffs on you. We’re going to correct the conditions."