Earlier this month, Governor Kathy Hochul announced a new initiative to improve safety on the New York City subway system. Hochul, who has served as the 57th governor of New York since 2021, has gained traction due to her status as the first female governor of the state and the first governor from upstate New York to assume the charge of governor since Nathan L. Miller in 1992.
Her initiatives for the subway focus on partnering with the New York Police Department (NYPD) to deploy law enforcement officers on every New York City Subway train between 9:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m., implementing barriers on subway platforms to protect riders, stopping fare evasion, improving lighting throughout the stations and reinforcing New York mental health laws to aid individuals with severe mental illnesses who wander the subway platforms and trains. Safety on public transportation is a pressing concern, and Fordham students have some strong opinions on the matter shaped by their own experiences navigating the city’s most crowded transit system.
Fordham students had mixed opinions on the initiative.
“To hear that Kathy Hochul is trying to fix this issue feels a little reassuring that we could resolve it,” said Crystal Wu, GSB ’25, executive vice president of the Commuter Student Association (CSA).
The opinions that stood out the most were on fare evasion, believing that it was an irresolvable issue. One student pointed out how law enforcement can’t realistically stop it. “At its most integral level, people hop the fare because they think of it as not worth the service being provided. Instead of funding more law enforcement or spiked turnstile barriers, her administration should be attempting to resolve the core of the problem: the MTA’s fiscal irresponsibility,” said Michael Buana, GSB ’27.
Others pointed out the initiative’s futile attempts to meet its goals and the ignorance towards other major problems in New York. “While structural improvements like platform barriers and better lighting are long overdue, what riders really need are investments in affordable housing, accessible healthcare, and community-based support services,” said Kellen Zeng, GSB ’25, executive president of CSA.
However, when it comes to the implementation of the protective barriers, most consider the implementation of these as useless. “We need barriers that fully block access to the tracks at all times and only open when trains arrive at the station,” said Bipasana Poudel, FCRH ’25. Some alluded back to the previous attempts from last year by the MTA to establish platform metal barriers to prevent people from falling onto the rails, which were met with negativity as passengers complained about how these metal barriers were not wide enough and did not cover enough area to actually prevent people from falling.
Many Fordham students declared, at one point or the other, to have felt unsafe or in danger when utilizing the subway. Some believed that the deployment of more police patrols in the subway would only create more tension among the passengers and further contribute to the environment of fear and dread that they already experience. Others also pointed out the ineffectiveness of the police patrols in maintaining order and preventing people from committing fare evasion acts, the same acts that Governor Hochul is actively trying to solve. Very few argued in favor of more police patrols on the subways or feeling safer while having cops on the train cars.
While Governor Hochul’s attempts to improve the situation on the New York subways and make everyone safe are admirable, many Fordham students believe the state should focus on broader societal issues, and although commuter students and most in general recognize and value Hochul’s efforts, the question about whether these changes will bring meaningful improvements on the city’s subways still remains.
