Crime and Public Transit

Continuing with the theme of the indirect consequences of overly lax law enforcement (see last week’s post) City Journal has an article titled Transit and the American City by Nicole Gelinas. A healthy public transit system is necessary for large, dense cities, but American public transit is in crisis. As usual, the crisis has multiple causes, but crime and disorder are among them.

After tracing the ups and downs and discussing other factors, Ms. Gelinas notes:

Worsening public safety is also keeping people away. Between 2019 and 2020, the number of homicides in America soared by almost a third, the highest one-year increase in history. Major cities, including New York, Chicago, and Washington, suffered hundreds of additional murders. Safety deteriorated even more dramatically, percentage-wise, on transit. Between 2008 and 2019, the average number of annual homicides in American transit systems was 14; it never exceeded 22 in any one year. In 2020, though, the number of transit murders reached 31, more than twice the average over the previous decade; in 2021, it stayed elevated, at 24. Violent felonies in transit were 45 percent above the pre-Covid average. New York, with one or two transit murders a year against a ridership of nearly 2 billion, had previously been a national emblem of safe, reliable, urban transit. But with 25 transit killings between March 2020 and January 2023, it became a national symbol of transit danger.

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And disorder has intensified. From San Francisco to Philadelphia, transit riders must contend with open-air drug use and discarded, often dangerous, drug paraphernalia. They also must tolerate ubiquitous smoking on platforms and trains. On public safety, says Tung, “SEPTA is symptomatic of the larger problems we have in Philadelphia.” Along with the “massive opioid crisis,” he notes, “it’s gotten to the point where almost every time you go down there, there’s someone smoking.” In February 2023, a new mother who describes herself as a “socialist” tweeted that “I would like to be able to ride the [Philadelphia] subway with my four-month-old baby and not be in a car with people smoking.” She received a torrent of abuse, including from one respondent castigating her for implicitly “asking for . . . more policing on public transit” and told her to, “uhh, just use a private car if you don’t want to deal with the public part of public transportation.” With advocates like this, public transit doesn’t need enemies. “Making sure that we’re improving that rider experience from a safety standpoint, a cleanliness standpoint,” is key, Bob Powers, BART’s general manager, told a TransitCenter research-group webinar in March 2023. But up against San Francisco’s broad anti-policing sentiment, BART must use tactics such as encouraging passengers to intervene when they witness harassment—a campaign that may actually deter lapsed riders.

Ms. Gelinas asks rhetorically:

What can the governors and mayors who ultimately oversee transit systems do, besides the obvious—crack down on crime and antisocial behavior to restore an environment of order? And what should Congress do?

Her other suggestions are worth considering, but “the obvious” would be a good start.