New York state’s public transit is the most dangerous in the US, a new analysis found.
Between 2021 and 2023, mass transit in the Empire State saw 23 deaths, 1,641 violent incidents and 1,759 injuries – for a hair-raising average of 17.5 perilous incidents per 100,000 riders, personal injury attorneys John Foy & Associates found in its analysis of US Department of Transportation data.
Illinois was No. 2 on the list of most dangerous public transit systems, with 13.3 incidents per 100,000 riders, followed by Minnesota (11), Massachusetts (8.1) and Pennsylvania (4.9).
California – which was the only state to record more mass-transit deaths than New York, with 31 – saw 4.4 perilous incidents per 100,000 riders. The least dangerous transit states were Arizona and Washington each, with 2.6 dangerous incidents per capita.
In New York City — home to the MTA, the largest public transportation agency in North America — subways alone saw a daily ridership of 3.2 million from Jan. 5 to Jan. 8.
Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant, recalled the frightful period in the Big Apple’s underground.
“Over that three-, four-year period between 2020 and 2024, we had just as many murders as we had done in the previous 20 years in the New York City subway system,” recalled Giacalone, an adjunct professor at Penn State University-Lehigh Valley.
In 2022, the city subway system saw 10 murders – the highest number in 25 years. There had never been more than five murders underground in a single year between 1997 and 2020, according to NYPD data.
During the morning rush on April 12, 2022, madman Frank James, 62, lit a smoke bomb and opened fire in a packed subway car in Brooklyn, shooting 10 people and injuring a total of 29.
James was sentenced to life in prison for the planned, race-fueled attack aboard the N train in Sunset Park – which petrified the city just as pandemic restrictions had eased.
More recently, an illegal migrant allegedly torched a woman to death on a Brooklyn subway.
Guatemalan native Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, is accused of setting on fire a sleeping Debrina Kawam, 57, then watching her burn, during the terrifying Dec. 22, 2024 attack on an F train.
So far this year, the city’s transit system has seen 50% more rapes – with three, compared to two at this point last year – and a 7% spike in misdemeanor assaults (409 vs. 382). Overall, crime is down 18% — the second-lowest level of subway crime in 27 years, according to the NYPD’s latest transit crime report and a department statement last week.
For the first time in seven years, there were no murders in the transit system during the first quarter of 2025, the statement said, citing “a surge in NYPD patrol of subway platforms and trains to combat crime and violence.”
Within a three-day period last month, three men – one of whom was believed to be homeless – died after being struck by trains in Manhattan.
“The city subway system has definitely taken a hit over the past several years, and a lot of that is to lay at the feet of [former mayor] Bill de Blasio and [former city council speaker] Melissa Mark-Viverito and a couple other city council members, who basically decriminalized a bunch of things and removed police from doing their jobs – ultimately turning [the transit system] into a big homeless shelter,” Giacalone told The Post.
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