'Big Brother Is Watching': NYC Subway Cars To Get Cameras, Gov Says

NEW YORK CITY — Big Brother is watching you commute. Or, he will be, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Tuesday.

Security cameras will be installed in all of the MTA's 6,455 subway cars as part of a $6 million effort to combat mounting crime on the rails, Hochul announced Tuesday.

“If you think Big Brother is watching you on the subways," Hochul said, "you’re absolutely right."

Each subway car will get two cameras and remains unclear whether they will feature facial recognition technology, Hochul said.

Cameras will be installed on 200 train per month until a projected end-date in 2025, officials said. A new fleet of R211 subway cars arriving in 2023 will come camera-equipped.

The announcement arrived five months after a bloody attack on a Brooklyn subway train that devolved into a frantic manhunt and the arrest of Frank James. The search was slowed as cameras in the station malfunctioned and didn't transmit footage — a failure that MTA officials have tried to downplay by noting other devices captured images of the suspect.

Weeks later, another chaotic search began for the man accused of randomly, and fatally, shooting Park Slope subway rider Daniel Enriquez aboard a Manhattan-bound Q train.

Despite the spate of high-profile attacks, Hochul said subway crimes have actually decreased 21 percent in recent months as riders returned to the rails.

But even as crime overall drops in the subways, many straphangers remain concerned about safety, Hochul said.

“We’re going to be having surveillance of activities on the subways, and that is going to give people great peace of mind," Hochul said. "And if you're concerned about this, the best answer is don't commit crimes on the subways."

A less formal form of surveillance has done little to increase the comfort of New Yorkers who view regular viral videos about dangerous situations in city subways.

A recent example shows a man with his pants down carrying a brick in a subway car.

Janno Lieber, the MTA's chair and CEO, said installing cameras on subway cars is a logical extension of a program that has already put 10,000 cameras near turnstiles, platforms and other places in the system.

The MTA has already installed high-quality cameras in 100 subway cars in a pilot program, and Lieber said the expansion across the system will begin in a few months.

"This is all about safety, the safety of our writers and letting would-be criminals know that should you harm any other passenger in any way you'll be observed, you'll be caught, you'll be prosecuted," Hochul said.

"Security cameras have been a way of life. You walk into any grocery store, you're being watched. You walk in the drugstore, you're being watched."