New York Metropolis's Metropolitan Transportation Authority will set up safety cameras throughout town's total fleet of subway vehicles in an try to boost security, Gov. Kathy Hochul's workplace introduced Tuesday. The step comes as total crime within the metropolis elevated final month.
"My primary precedence as Governor is preserving New Yorkers secure," Hochul stated in a press release. "I'm proud that we'll be putting in cameras on all Subway vehicles — increasing our safety capabilities, deterring crime, and offering our regulation enforcement with assist."
Utilizing $2 million in funding from the City Space Safety Initiative federal grant program in addition to $3.5 million from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, greater than 12,700 cameras might be bought and put in in subway vehicles. In complete, every subway automotive will obtain two cameras.
In accordance with Hochul's workplace, cameras might be added to 200 practice vehicles every month till the set up course of is accomplished, which ought to be in 2025.
The funds will even broaden digital camera protection in round 130 of town's subway stations.
At the moment, the entire metropolis's 472 subway stations have cameras, and there are about 200 cameras in 100 subway vehicles.
"It has been confirmed time and time once more that cameras within the transit system assist battle crime all through the entire metropolis, not simply on the subway," New York Metropolis Transit president Richard Davey stated in a press release Tuesday. "Increasing the digital camera community will serve to discourage those that are intent on committing a criminal offense from coming into the transit system."
The newest measure to curb violence within the metropolis comes as New York Metropolis noticed a 26% improve in total crime this yr in August when in comparison with the identical month in 2021. Throughout this time, robberies had been up 38%, grand larceny elevated by 34.7% and burglaries rose by 31.1%. Nevertheless, August marked the fourth-lowest variety of shootings for any August for the reason that early Nineties in New York Metropolis.
Police Commissioner Keechant L. Sewell stated "there may be way more work to be completed to deal with crime in our metropolis."
"We should push ahead as we proceed to advocate for additional refinements to the state's well-meaning prison justice reforms that too many recidivists and violent criminals exploit," she stated in a press release.