City Council bloviation wont end subway surfing and ignores real safety problem

The alarming rise in subway crime over the past five years has New Yorkers on edge.Assaults this year are up 56% over 2019, and after decades in which underground murders averaged one or, at most, two a year, we’ve had 10 so far in 2024 — double the number of killings seen in 2023.So it was great to hear on Monday that the City Council would hold a special hearing to address the problem of safety in the subways.Except: The hearing wasn’t about rampant crime, but about the one type of subway bodily harm that is entirely avoidable — because it’s entirely self-inflicted.“Subway surfing” is a fad where passengers, almost always adolescents, climb on top of subway cars on elevated lines and “surf” them, balancing atop trains that can hit speeds of 50 miles per hour.This obviously dangerous activity has killed six kids this year alone, with another seven badly injured.Subway surfing is clearly no joke.In early November, a girl fell off a 2 train in Harlem and lost an arm and a leg.Grisly images of her arm lying on top of a traffic signal ought to be enough warning for any would-be copycats that this game is a bad idea.In response, the MTA, the schools, the Department of Youth and Community Development and the NYPD have gone all-out with subway ads, a social media campaign and in-school messaging to spread the word.The police are using drones to identify subway surfers in real time, and have arrested 181 of these dotty daredevils so far this year.But leave it to the City Council to grandstand, groan and grouse about how New Yorkers have failed their youth.Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said he was “concerned about the increased arrests of young people,” and especially worried about the “increased use of surveillance technology, especially considering the NYPD’s concerning history of surveilling New Yorkers.”“I often ask myself, would I listen to me as a young person?” Williams pondered during his testimony.

“I’m not sure I have the fu...