B-Roll, Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces MTA to Install Security Cameras in Every New York City Subway Car

B-ROLL of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS of the event will available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us here in this beautiful venue. The place where the work is done, where we have hundreds of hard working individuals who are dedicated to making sure that our trains are running, that they are safe and that's something we're going to be chatting about right now is about how we can continue to further enhance not just the actual security, but the sense of security that all riders deserve to have.

I'm really proud to be here with Janno Lieber, the Chairman and CEO of the MTA. We are so impressed with how the work on this really important issue, which is giving people the confidence to know that when they get on a train, they're going to have a world class experience. We just talked about the 7 train, how you've dramatically increased the on-time numbers and just giving people that sense that things are back to normal. So, thank you and your team at MTA for what you do.

We're also joined by Pat Warren, the Chief Safety and Security Officer at the MTA. Some of them we're in regular contact with to see how we can, as a state, support the safety and security of this lifeblood of our city. Demetrius Crichlow is our MTA Senior - our VP for Subways. And Shirley Martin, the Vice President of Car Equipment from TWU Local 100. And thank you to all the members of Local 100 for what you do.

You know, it's starting to feel like the City's moving again, or if it's, like, back to normal. It really doesn't feel like it is moving because there's a lot of traffic. And I just experienced that coming out from speaking at the CGI, and other activities that are going on in the City to remind us that we are back. It's a vibrant feeling and people are getting back to school, they're getting back to work and they're getting back to the subways. It really makes you feel proud to see. And we have statistics and articles written recently, but offices in New York City are starting to be full of life again, full of people. A 38 percent increase in the number of people. According to a New York Times article, the biggest post-labor to increase of any major city. We're proud of that.

Also on September 14th, the ridership, subway ridership surpassed 3.7 million riders for the first time since the horrific days of March 2020. And that is an important milestone we've been striving for for a while. Ridership is depending on the time of day, up to 60 to 70 percent of the ridership it had been before the pandemic. But again, this also accounts for the fact that there's people with much more flexible hours. Not everybody is coming in Monday through Friday, might have a hybrid situation. So, that is absolutely going to affect our numbers, but people are getting back to normal.

But as we listen to concerns, people are still concerned about transit crime. Statement of fact. It's real. And that's why we're leaning into finding strategies and technologies to make sure that we address just what we're doing here today because my number one goal always has been, always will be keeping New Yorkers safe. And no one should ever have fear when they're simply going to school on the subways, on our trains or going to their jobs. And last January, when Mayor Adams was brand new on the job, the two of us went into the subways together with Janno, and we announced significant steps to improve subway safety, including having deployment of more NYPD officers in the subways to have that visible presence. Not just to prevent crimes, but also to help solve them if they're committed.

So, it's helping enforce the rules. Also in June, I signed a bill into law to protect transit employees. I mean, these people truly are in a vulnerable situation, and we made it a felony to assault a station customer assistance worker, maintenance workers, repair workers and supervisors. Now, we're starting to see some incremental signs of progress. That is good. There's no mission accomplished here today, but we're talking about the fact that we're looking at comparing our pre-pandemic levels of 2019, the last time you had a normal year. And transit crime is actually down 4.5 percent from our last normal year in 2019. So, that is a positive development. And what we show is that as ridership increases, the number and instances of crimes decreases.

And from January to May, we had about 193 crimes per month. Again, talking about higher numbers coming back, now that number is declining, it's 173. So, it's not going up, but it's not to where we want it to be. But if you adjust for that, given our ridership, it's about a 21 percent decrease just from June to September of this year. So again, a good metric, a good trajectory to show that we're down - subway crimes are down 21 percent just since the summer started. And that's an important correlation, as I mentioned again, more riders means fewer crimes.

So, as we talk about how we can make people feel safer, and again, our law enforcement are the best in the world. We're trying to make sure that we have more monitoring in place monitoring that will allow people to be aware. I talked about having some signs in there. Our digital signs are great. I said, "Smile, you're on camera. We're working together to make sure that you are safe when you on ride our subways." And so, that's what we're doing. So, last September, we announced that the MTA had over 472 subway stations, which had had functioning security cameras. It was an important tool, but those are the stations. People are actually in the cars. And we talked about in June, how we want to have a pilot program to start placing security cameras, actually in the trains for the very first time, installing them about a hundred cars back then. So, while our pilot program is still underway, it's working very well. We wanted to announce that we are now prepared to be having the installation of cameras in all subway vehicles, all subway cars. And that's awarded through grants from the federal government, the Homeland Security Department, Homeland Security Committees have a program that has money for security for urban areas. So, a combination of 6 million from that fund and also our MTA Action Plan. We have over $6 million ready to do this.

So, what we're going to be announcing is that we're having two cameras, two security cameras that'll cover the width of the train, installed in each one of the 6,455 subway trains. Now, I'm optimistic. And I believe that these will also be a deterrent to people. You're going to be caught if you conduct any activity where it's an aggressive act or whether it's a violent crime. And so, I think that's going to go a long way to helping easing people's insecurities that they may have, to know that everyone knows now that there'll be cameras on the trains. So, parents will be feeling more secure about putting their kids on the trains to go to schools. Senior citizens will be less apprehensive about taking the train to their doctor appointments, and New Yorkers can just have a calm way to get on their way off to their jobs. And it's not just because I mentioned the peace of mind. It's also about solving the crimes because they're going to get the actual visual experience. You're going to have a camera footage that's going to show any crime or activity committed on a subway train and that'll allow law enforcement to search for and identify the people responsible.

So, you think Big Brother is watching you on the subways? You're absolutely right. That is our intent to get the message out that we are going to be having surveillance of activities on the subway trains, and that is going to give people great peace of mind. And if you're concerned about this, the best answer is don't committee crimes on the subways. Then you won't have any problems. So, this is all part of our overall recovery as we're going forth. I know that the last two years have been extremely difficult. We're cognizant of that. And we're doing everything we can to use the tools, the resources, and the technologies that'll change people's experiences, start changing their anxiety about safety on our subways.