Exclusive | Off the rails: Over half of NYC straphangers feel unsafe, unsatisfied on subways
Fewer than half of New York City subway riders feel safe or satisfied, according to an MTA survey.This spring, just 45% of straphangers said they felt safe aboard trains, according to the results of the MTA’s Customers Count spring 2024 survey. That’s down from the 54% who felt safe inside subway cars in the fall of 2023.Additionally, just 44% said they felt safe inside train stations this spring, a drop from 51% in fall 2023, according to the bi-annual poll conducted April 18 through May 12. Only 47% of straphangers said they were satisfied with the transit system — down from 52% in the fall 2023, and the lowest percentage since the spring 2022 survey, when it was 48%, the stats show.Simmone Leslie wasn’t surprised by the decline, telling the Post she “avoids riding the subway by any means necessary” due to safety concerns. Leslie, 35, recalled a particularly harrowing moment during a ride to a Liberty game this summer, when the train she was riding stopped en route to Atlantic-Barclays subway station in Brooklyn – and a disturbed man started screaming at straphangers and banging on the car’s doors. “It was nerve-racking,” Leslie said.
“I don’t know if [someone] has got a weapon on them, if they’ll randomly attack someone.”Leslie added that she now relies mostly on ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft to get around, and always carries a taser whenever she takes the subway. In one of the latest random transit attacks, a rock-wielding menace bashed a straphanger on the head inside a Chelsea subway station on Wednesday afternoon.On Tuesday night, a 54-year-old man was fatally stabbed during a dispute on a Coney Island subway platform. So far this year, nine people were murdered systemwide — up 80% from the five recorded at this point last year, according to NYPD’s latest transit crime data through Oct.
27, which did not take into account the Tuesday murder. There were five rapes in the system so far this year, compared to f...