A Manhattan congressmember and the U.S. secretary of transportation went face to face over subway crime.
Picture by Dean Moses
A Manhattan congressmember and the U.S. secretary of transportation accused one another of mendacity about subway security as they introduced competing statistics at a U.S. Home of Representatives committee listening to Wednesday.
Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.), a senior member of the Home’s transportation committee, questioned Sean Duffy, who leads the federal Division of Transportation, over Duffy’s public criticism of the MTA. Duffy has accused the MTA of permitting crime to fester within the subway, regardless of police statistics displaying total subway crime declining.
Duffy and Nadler every accused the opposite of mendacity as they talked over one another and finally began shouting within the listening to room.
Knowledge from the New York Police Division reveals that, usually, subways are far safer than critics and media painting. Main crime — together with homicide, rape and assault — in New York’s subways was down 3% from final 12 months and down 8% from 2019, earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nader stated Duffy was ignoring the information to make the subway seem extra harmful.
“Secretary Duffy, as recently as last week, you again attacked the MTA, claiming there’s a surge in subway assaults and accusing the agency of withholding information, but many of your statements misrepresent the facts and ignore documentation already provided to your department,” Nadler stated.
Nadler requested if Duffy was conscious of the pattern, to which Duffy replied, “No, that’s wrong.”
Duffy pointed to an outlier within the knowledge that reveals a current surge in assaults, which critics have stated demonstrates the hazard of the subway.
Nadler stated Duffy’s testimony and knowledge misrepresented the general pattern of New York’s subways.
“Why do you continue to ignore this and lie about this in your public comments?” Nadler stated.
Duffy then raised his voice at Nadler and returned the query: “Why do you continue to lie about people being lit on fire in subways or pushed in front of trains? You should be fighting to make sure your subways are safe.”
Duffy, a former actuality TV star, has repeatedly criticized the New York subway all through his tenure as transportation secretary, counting on just a few high-profile circumstances that propelled the town’s subway security to nationwide consideration, together with when a lady was burned alive in December.
However subway crime makes up lower than 2% of whole crime in New York Metropolis in 2025, and the probabilities of dealing with crime on the subway are as distant as being injured in a automobile crash on a two-mile drive, in line with a New York Instances evaluation of information from 2022.
Danny Pearlstein, director of communications and coverage for the pro-transit group Riders Alliance, stated Duffy is extra concerned about political posturing than fixing crime.
“Sean Duffy has no sympathy for anyone victimized underground or he would invest in safety,” Pearlstein wrote on social media. “He’s using riders as props to tear down transit, boost fossil fuel consumption, and turn Americans against one another.”
Nadler additionally accused Duffy of misrepresenting New York’s congestion pricing program, a toll scheme designed to scale back site visitors and fund public transportation. Town gained a court docket case in opposition to the federal authorities after Duffy tried to halt funding to the MTA due to this system earlier this 12 months.
Nadler and Duffy continued to speak over one another, with Nadler claiming Duffy had ignored process and tried to cease congestion pricing even after it handed federal evaluate.
In flip, Duffy stated congestion pricing is an “elitist” coverage that hurts the working class by segregating the highway.
Automobile-owning households have twice the common annual revenue as households with out vehicles, in line with a 2024 evaluation from Hunter Faculty. And a 2017 report from the Neighborhood Service Society of New York, an anti-poverty group, discovered that solely 4% of residents within the outer boroughs commute to a Manhattan job and could be topic to congestion pricing.
When Duffy continued to rail in opposition to congestion pricing in his testimony, Nadler interrupted him to ask: “Secretary Duffy, why do you continue to lie about New York City.”
Duffy replied by saying Nadler lied, after which Nadler doubled down on his assertion.
“I’m calling you a liar because you lied, continually,” Nadler stated.
On social media after the listening to, Nadler stated New York Metropolis and its transit system are secure.
“The data shows that New York is the safest big city in America, and it has the safest big city transit system in America,” Nadler wrote. “Secretary Duffy knows this, and he’s lying to the public anyway.”
“I won’t stand for it, and I’ll keep calling out their lies,” Nadler added.
