Exclusive | Riders seeing crazy st in NYC subways as ridership and assaults surge

Assaults are surging this year in the subway system — and critics fear it’s getting worse with overcrowding caused by congestion pricing.Felony assaults are up 9% so far this year, going from 168 to 193 over the same period last year, according to the NYPD data.And they’re up a staggering 55% over 2019, the data show.

Of the felony assaults, 54 or about 30%, were against police officers, according to the NYPD.Misdemeanor assaults have fallen 2% so far this year from 466 to 456, but are up 3% from six years ago.“This should not be a Hobson‘s choice, but that is what Gov. Hochul has made it,” Rep.Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island) told The Post, referring to the governor’s support for the wildly controversial $9 congestion tax in Manhattan.

“People either need to cough up thousands of dollars a year or risk their safety.”Those fears turned to reality Friday morning when a 38-year-old man was stabbed to death after he got into a dispute with a rider who stepped on his foot on a downtown No.5 train at the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall Station in Manhattan, police sources said.Commuters — especially those who traded in their car keys for MetroCards — were alarmed by the assault spike.“I think it’s gonna keep getting worse with more people down here,” said G.J.

Emajli Kraku, a plumber who travels to the city from Bellmore, LI.“I used to drive into the city every day, but it was going to cost 120 bucks to take the car in.”Hochul said on the state’s website last month that subway and bus ridership was up 6% and 9%, respectively, since the toll was enacted Jan.

5.City Council Minority Leader Joann Ariola (R-Queens) called the subway the “city’s de facto mental institution and homeless shelter, except without the doctors, beds, or security.“Forcing more New Yorkers underground with this ridiculous congestion pricing scheme is going to put more people into contact with the dangerously unwell,” the councilwoman said.“That’s a re...