11/15/2022
New York City, the city that never sleeps, is home to millions of people and a very popular tourist attraction to millions more across the world. Everyday people rely on public transportation to get to and from places. Whether it be the the subway transit or the public bus, public transpoortaton plays a very important part in everyones everyday lives. And along with people taking these transorpation services everyday there have always been safety concerns. For years the general public have been worried and scared about their safety when taking public transportation. This is most due to the fact that almost daily, news and media outlets report horrific incidents that happen mostly in train station platforms and inside of trains.
The average New York City citizen or resident can not afford to buy a car or take car services such as Uber and Lyft to get to places especially with inflation and prices constantly on the rise. And with people constantly being notfied of the horredoues almost unspeaks things that are happening in the trains and on the train platforms it makes sense for saftey to be the number 1 concern. It has also made people very hesitant to take and use public transportation but the majority have no ther choice but to use the very thing that causes many people to fear for their safety and lives on go on as if there is nothing wrong.
One specific incident that quite litterally left all of New York City and the entire country rattled and shocked occured on the morning of April 12th 2022 inside of the N train on its way to the 36th streets station in Brooklyn, Sunset Park coming from 59th street during the morning rush hour. A man put on a gas mask and threw a smoke grenade and fired a handgun injuring 29 people were injured and of those 29, five were left in critical condition. And after all that happened, and prices for car services drastically increased and people were forced to take the train home and move on with their lives. A large manhunt was later took place to find the person in charge of the grim act. And during the investigation it was discovered that there was not one working security camera in the station were this incident took place. It was later reported that a man named Frank Robert James was responsible for it.
According to police statistics crime in subway had increased 63% since 2021. It is no wonder why the vast majority of people have become hesitant to take the NYC subway. Many people had turn to the mayor for answers to what his plan was to prevent furture incidents from happening and people got the usual answer they always do, that theres going to be changes to The MTA to unsure peoples safety and that theres a ‘plan’ Not necessarily a specific answer.
Authority figures should make it much more of a priority to sure the publics safety when taking trains. The MTA is responsible for transporting children to and from school. It should not be that when a parent send their child to school that there could be a possibility of them never being seen again and never making it back home. Or if they do make it back home they are severely injured. When you google serach “nyc subway safety plan” the first thing that comes up is a pdf document stating their ‘plan’. In this document they basically say the same things that they have been saying years prior but it does not seem like there has been much of this “change” happening to the general public eye. Sure here and there theyll place a few NYPD officials in stations but that is all it seems. It simply should not be that way.
After the horrific incident that occdurec in sunset park a statement was released saying that officials were now goinjg to place security cameras in every station, train, and train car.
