Slow Roll Out for Start of Two Cops on Subway Trains at Night

The much ballyhooed plan to put two cops on each subway train at night started this week, but the rollout was slow with only four subway lines covered in the first week, the A, G, L and J lines.

There were only 100 cops on duty on day one on Jan. 20. That’s one third of the 300 who have been budgeted for the patrols by Gov. Kathy Hochul in her state of the state address.

“We have had horrific, unusual, high-profile crimes that have occurred,” Hochul acknowleged and said the $77 million she is allocating is to pay for overtime for 300 more NYPD officers on the subways.

“We’re not doing anything with the 2,500 police officers who are already there patrolling the system,” she said. “This is to add on top of that. This is not diverting existing law enforcement. I want to assure everybody of that.”

She said she would propose extending an additional six months of when the initial funds run out in July.

Also in the address, she said she budgeted for the MTA to install new protective barriers on platforms on more than 100 stations, add new LED lighting to increase visibility on platforms and modernize fare gates to try to eliminate the nearly $300 million that the subway system loses each year to turnstile jumpers. [Coupled with fare beaters on city buses, the total in lost fare revenue for the MTA is over $700 million.]

Eric Adams was joined by the Chief of the NYPD’s Transit department Joseph Gulotta at a press conference on Jan 21. “Thanks to our partnership with the governor, there will be two uniformed officers assigned to each train between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m.,” Adams said. “We’re going to do a phased approach to rollout until we get to the roll of 300,” he said, acknowledging that the full contingent is not yet being deployed underground.

“Right now, we have 100 officers assigned to that, and it’s going to be growing and rolling out as we go through it,” said Transit Bureau Gulotta.

The average subway train is nine cars long, and the two patrol officers will be in one car at a time.

Gulotta gave a run down on how the police will move from car to car each time a train pull into each station.

“We’re going to make contact with the conductor and the motorman on these trains, and the goal for that is they’re going to announce that a police officer is on that train,” Gulota said. “So if you get on that train and you may not see that police officer in the car, the MTA is going to make an announcement telling you, yes, there is a police officer on this train, and that’ll alert people out of there.”

The NYPD end of year crime statitics said that reported subway crime incidents actually dropped five percent in 2024 compared to a year earlier. But there have been a number of jarring incidents on the subways over the past year including most recently the homeless woman who was set afire and died on an F train in Queens.

“Keeping New Yorkers safe is my top priority—and that means making sure our subways feel safe and are safe for every single rider and worker,” Hochul said. “No one should be in fear that they’ll be a victim of crime as they commute to work, go to school or enjoy a night out — that is why we’re partnering with law enforcement, improving our infrastructure and ensuring that New Yorkers struggling with mental illness get the support they need.”