Sean Duffy keeps fighting with New York—good luck with that
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been on an anti-New York City subway system tirade.
In one of his many Fox News interviews, Duffy said on Thursday that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, cares more about “homeless and mentally ill” people than the “riding public of New Yorkers.”
“We don’t care about the green, we don’t care about the social justice. We care about the projects and the safety of the American people,” he said.
And while running on a platform of safety sounds like a good approach, Duffy’s monthslong standoff with Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams is missing some key info. Despite his crying about NYC crime rates in the subway system, data says that crime is actually declining.
Major crimes on the subway fell by 18% in the first three months of 2025 compared to last year, according to police statistics obtained by The New York Times. And while Duffy and President Donald Trump have been disparaging and threatening NYC’s congestion pricing plan, data shows that it has been working.
The plan, intended to make it easier for New Yorkers to get around by up-charging drivers coming into Manhattan at certain times, has seen success and raised funds that will be used to repair the very subway system that Duffy claims is a “shithole.”
“If you want people to take the train, take transit, then make it safe, make it clean, make it beautiful, make it wonderful. Don’t make it a shithole, which is what she’s done,” he said while touring the subway with Adams earlier this month.
“[Hochul] could fix it, and she chooses not to,” he added.
During his trip with Adams, Duffy suggested that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency take a crack at cutting down the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s budget.
He also threatened to withhold federal funding if New York couldn’t provide proof that they were making the subways safer. Somehow, in the same breath, he also managed to compare the subway system to a homeless shelter.
But as Duffy and Trump hack and haw about a subway system they’ve rarely used, even the New York Police Department and MTA’s top officials are confused about the narrative they’re painting.
“Over the past two months, we’ve seen a 28.2% reduction in crime, which amounts to 110 fewer victims compared to the same period last year. I mean, those numbers speak for themselves,” Chief Joseph Gulotta said last month.
And Haeda Mihaltses, chair of the MTA board’s New York City Transit Committee, pointed out that, while the data shows a clear decline in crime, Trump and Duffy are “saying something else.”
“I mean,” she said, “where are they getting their numbers from?”
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