New York Deploys 500 Officers to Deter Fare Beaters, Worker Assaults
N.Y. Deploys 500 Officers to Deter Fare Beaters, Worker Assaults
(Bloomberg) -- New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered 500 police and other law enforcement officers to deal with increasing incidents of assaults on transit workers and fare evasion on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s subways and buses.
The new patrols will include 200 New York City police officers, paid for with city funds, 200 MTA officers and 100 bridge and tunnel officers. The agency will use video cameras at some subway gates to support the increase in personnel, although authorities are not sure how they can best be employed, MTA Chairman Pat Foye said.
Anyone committing an assault on a transit worker or passenger will be arrested and prosecuted, Cuomo said at a news conference Monday, with Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. at his side. Teams of at least two officers will be deployed at bus stops and subway gates and issue theft-of-service summonses carrying a $60 fine to anyone caught turnstile jumping or boarding a bus without paying.
“We’ve been talking about doing something for a number of years,” Cuomo said. “If it works we’ll scale it up; if it doesn’t we’ll do something different.”
Transit officials expect lost subway and bus fares to total about $260 million this year, up from $100 million three years ago, said Foye. Buses account for about 55% of the evaded fares. About 18% of the city’s bus riders either ignore the driver or use the rear door to board the bus to gain a free ride, he said.
The MTA recorded 100 serious assault incidents in the past year and another 1,200 reports of harassment against transit workers, Cuomo said. The assaults and the fare evasions often occur at the same locations, including Manhattan’s Union Square, Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Terminal, Foye said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Goldman in New York at hgoldman@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flynn McRoberts at fmcroberts1@bloomberg.net, Stacie Sherman, William Selway
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