B-Roll, Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces Increased Law Enforcement Presence and Additional Safety Measures in Subway System

B-Roll, Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces Increased Law Enforcement Presence and Additional Safety Measures in Subway System

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced a surge in law enforcement and additional safety measures throughout New York City's subway system. Working in partnership with New York City officials and the NYPD, 300 uniformed officers will be deployed on all 150 overnight trains, with two uniformed officers assigned to each train between 9:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. An additional 750 officers will be deployed by the NYPD into subway stations and platforms. As part of her 2025 State of the State, Governor Hochul announced a series of comprehensive new steps to make the transit system safer for all New Yorkers, which included increasing law enforcement presence, investments in safety infrastructure upgrades and strengthening mental health policies.

B-ROLL of the Governor riding the subway is available on Youtube here and is available in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here.

PHOTOS: Photos of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page here.

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

 Great to be back in the City, great to be back on the world's greatest subway system. I just came in from a tour of Bryant Park/Fifth Avenue station. Why'd I go to Bryant Park/Fifth Avenue station? Because I want to see first-hand. First of all, the cameras that we have in every subway car - I told you I would get that done in every station, something I insisted on that is ahead of schedule. I think that's important to reassure New Yorkers that there are people watching.

I walked through one of the train cars and chatted with everybody, and a lot of smiles - people felt good and they're excited about the protections that are being put in place for all of them. They also wanted to take a look at the LED lighting, which really makes a difference from one station to another. So, I want to make sure that we work hard on getting LED lighting in all of our stations by the end of this year and those metal platform barriers that you may have seen. There were some earlier renditions that were big and sophisticated - let's just get back to basics. They serve their purpose. They're there if someone wants to stand behind them while the train is approaching, and it gives you that sense of security that every New Yorker deserves to have.

And that's why I've also said, in my State of the State, we've outlined a very aggressive plan to ensure that we ramp up the law enforcement presence on our subways as well. I had a chance to thank a number of the members of the NYPD and the transit police - and the reason they're so important, we know this is a strategy that actually works. Last March, we had a big surge in crime. We started to see a decline in the fall, and then for some reason, there was a 46 percent increase in crime in the month of January.

I got together with the mayor and our teams and said, "We have to do something," and that's when we first deployed the National Guard. We beefed up the overtime. We had State police down there and we're making real progress. Now, people want to see police officers in the stations and on the trains. Go ahead and ask people, "Do they feel better when they see someone in uniform who can protect them in advance of someone trying to do harm to them or certainly be there to help in the aftermath?

And, I'm not going over crime statistics - it doesn't matter. I encourage you to look at them, though. I encourage you to look at them and see where we are compared to where we had been. But, I'll never stop fighting to make sure that our subway is safer, and that people - our commuters, who, over a billion people took the subway last year - feel safe as well as those who are in the stations.

Now, we have seen an increase in some kinds of crimes. Overall crime is down, we have the data, but there has been an increase in some felony assaults and some murders, which is what really shakes that foundation of security that everyone deserves to have. So, we are deploying an additional 750 NYPD. And I want to bolster the police presence overnight - we track where the crimes are committed. Now again, on average, it is four to six crimes a day. Regardless, we have trends that show more of them are likely to occur on the overnight hours, and that's when we have to protect, really, the unsung heroes of our City.

When others are going home, these are the people coming in. You know, they work the night shift at the hospital. The people who work in the hotel lobbies, the doctors and nurses, the bakers, the baristas, the construction workers who need to be on call - these are the people who keep our City running. They're taking public transit and they have every right to be safe.

So let's recap what we're talking about here: the NYPD has 2,500 officers assigned to transit stations around the City. They're not going anywhere, this is not taking people out who are already performing important protection services. But we're also putting 750 more on platforms and in stations. And then there's 300 more, so you have two per train. There's 150 trains that travel the overnight shifts - that's two police officers per train, that's where you get the 300 from. And then you add that in with the National Guard we already have there. So, basically what this means is that we've doubled the number of law enforcement personnel in the New York City subway system in one year.

But we're also making sure that not just - as I mentioned - not just the physical presence of police, but it's also those physical barriers, it's the LED lights, it's the cameras - but also, I say it's time to crack down on the shameless fare evaders who just are so brazen, they just walk through. And others who are paying, they feel like, "Why should I bother?" And it's hit our coffers of the MTA hard. Not just here, but also on our buses. So I've directed the MTA to install the modern turnstiles in 40 stations. We track where most of the fare evasion occurs. We'll hit the top 40 by the end of 26, and continue to make sure we don't stop until we've completed this process.

It's also about keeping people safe. We talked about some of our strategies to help those who need the most help to be taken to get the treatment they need, and the security of having a safe place to take care of themselves and not living on the subways.

Contact the Governor's Press Office