The New York City subway system serves as the primary avenue in which diverse groups of people come into contact. Recently, it’s become the center of many national issues coming up against each other. Economic issues stemming from not being able to afford basic cost of living, the attacks on immigrants, over-policing affecting Black and brown communities, and the rise of vigilantes, are all broad issues that share the NYC subway system as a common thread.

2025 kicked off with an economic attack on working-class New Yorkers: Subway fares are slated to go up from $2.90 to $3.00 this summer, and Congestion Pricing has begun. Congestion Pricing is a $9 tax on all cars driving in the “Congestion Relief Zone” in Manhattan south of 60th Street This was enacted simultaneously with the raising of all tolls in the area. Add to this skyrocketing rent costs, and continuing inflation, and you have a situation where working people are becoming more and more desperate. Due to this, we have seen increased turnstile jumping and people covering up their license plates to avoid the fees. All of this has come with increased policing and surveillance.

Kathy Hochul and Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Chair Janno Lieber are telling us these attacks are being done to raise the funds to repair the broken subway system, to decrease pollution from cars, and even to make the MTA more accessible to people with disabilities. But these politicians and their wealthy backers are not known for policies that battle the climate crisis, or that make our cities more accessible, and they have not proven themselves to care about the poor state of the subway system.

The fact is, they don't care. The MTA is $45 billion in debt to the big Wall Street banks, which is why they continue to raise fares and tolls every year and are implementing Congestion Pricing – to pay off the interest on these loans. When the MTA began to take on debt in the '70s, this kicked off a vicious cycle which has continued ever since. Instead of coming up with the money from elsewhere (like from the $11 billion police budget), they get the money from people commuting to work instead. They make car owners out to be “rich suburbanites who don't care about the environment” and subway riders to be “low income and environmentally conscious,” and pit these two groups against each other. The fact of the matter is, Congestion Pricing is incredibly unpopular, with 60% opposing the measure (75% in the suburbs) in 2024 before it was put into place.

Aside from creating a fog around the real issue, New York politicians are leaning on the oppression of Black New Yorkers to make sure MTA debts get paid. The increase of NYPD presence on the subways is a trend that goes back to Mayor DeBlasio, but it has experienced a huge spike under cop-Mayor Eric Adams. Adams, a former cop, has declared a “crackdown” on fare evasion and added thousands of officers to the subways, whose overtime costs more than the fares lost. In 2023, 82% of those ticketed for fare evasion and 92% of those arrested were Black and brown, and Black New Yorkers have a 10% higher chance of being ticketed for fare evasion than they did six years ago. In September of 2024, Derrell Mickles, a Black man, was shot by NYPD for jumping the turnstile, and another Black man, Gregory Delpeche, a bystander, was shot in the head by a rogue NYPD bullet from the same officer.

This is in addition to other increases in police presence in order to battle so-called “violent crime”. A few high-profile incidents on the subways involving deadly weapons have been jumped on by politicians to justify over-policing and increased surveillance. Stop and Frisk Policing has increased under Adams, Governor Hochul has sent in the National Guard, they’ve installed gun detectors that don’t work, and there is supposed to be a camera on every subway car by this year. Instead of actually investing in people's lives, New York politicians are using cops to shake down Black and brown people to pay off government debts.

This same unwillingness to invest in our communities has created an immigrant housing crisis in NYC. U.S. imperialist policies that have destabilized much of Latin America, coupled with Texas Governor's Abbott's “Operation Lone Star,” have caused an influx of immigrants to New York City. The housing shortage in the city, caused by greedy landlords and politicians, is exacerbated as immigrants and New Yorkers have trouble finding housing. Rather than forcing landlords to rent out their empty units at a decent rent, NYC politicians are pitting immigrants and New Yorkers against each other.

How are NYC politicians handling this? Eric Adams will be destroying 13 migrant shelters in all five boroughs, a reduction of about 10,000 beds. He justifies this by building one new shelter in the Bronx, which will only have the capacity for about 2200 people. He is also cracking down on vendors, mainly Latino, both within the subway and without. Most notably, he wants to reverse NYC's Sanctuary City Laws, by making it easier for the NYPD to collaborate with ICE. In August of 2024, Adams said, “Laws do not allow us to coordinate with ICE. That's the law. And, you know I'm not happy about that.”

NY politicians like Adams, the NYPD, and the mainstream media have teamed up to harp on stories of so-called “migrant crime.” Stories about supposed immigrant involvement in a rape in Coney Island, attacks on police officers, and robberies serve to create a sense of fear in the NYC community. As politicians drum up this fear of taking public transportation, right-wing vigilantes have taken up the cause. We first saw it in 2023 with Daniel Penny, a white, off-duty marine who killed Jordan Neeley, an unhoused Black man who was experiencing a mental health crisis on the subway.

In 2025, the “Alliance of Guardian Angels,” a vigilante group started in the 80s by right-winger Curtis Sliwa, decided to make its comeback. Curtis Sliwa and his crew, who are now focused on patrolling the subways, have been known to target immigrants and other oppressed nationalities. In 2024, they tackled a Bronx man on live TV because he was “speaking Spanish” and had mistaken the man for “a migrant.”

The function of vigilante groups like the Guardian Angels appears similar to other white supremacist groups such as the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, which remain active in NYC. These groups have felt validated by the racist policies of Trump during his first term, and we can expect to see this again under his second. They are fueled by a particular narrative pushed by corporate-funded media and our politicians: that immigrants and Black people are the cause of crime in our society, and the powers that be aren't doing enough about it.

The diverse political and social environment of New York City, as well as its size and dominant position in the national economic and social structure, make it an important factor in how things will play out nationwide. Currently, in NYC, we're seeing these conflicts play out on the subway and in our public transportation. We can expect these trends to be reflected all over the country: heightened contradictions between the people, the intensified oppression of Black people and immigrants, and vigilantism.

Trump will try to heighten these conflicts between the people, distracting them from their real enemy, the U.S. ruling class. We must see through the messaging of various politicians, representatives of our ruling class, pushed through their lackeys in the establishment media. We must dig deep to determine the real causes of our suffering and establish the correct target of our anger. We must build the broadest front possible between all those who will be affected by these reactionary policies, which will reach a fever pitch under the Trump presidency.

#InJusticeSystem #NewYorkNY #NY #Subway #PublicTransit

New York, NY – For working New Yorkers, taking the subway is an essential part of their day-to-day life. Having a car in New York is incredibly difficult and expensive, which means unless you are rich enough to take a cab to work every day, the subway is basically the only viable option. So for the many New Yorkers with working-class jobs that do not allow them to show up late without risk of getting fired, it is very important that the subway runs smoothly and remains affordable.

However, the reality is that New York’s Metro Transit Authority (MTA) struggles to maintain a dilapidated subway system that faces constant delays. Only about 25% of stations are fully accessible, and the MTA estimates it will be $426 billion in debt by 2023. How does the MTA propose to solve these problems? Their ‘solution’ is to ruthlessly police the poor and the homeless in a new crackdown on fare evasion, and to further exploit transit workers, putting more money into the pockets of MTA officials and higher ups.

The MTA announced in late 2019 that they will hire 500 new cops to patrol the subway stations and stop people from evading the subway fare. This comes as part of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s push for so-called ‘quality of life policing.’ In other words, Cuomo and the MTA want to police the poor and the homeless out of the subways, which will in their minds improve the ‘quality of life’ for those who can afford the subway fare.

Since the MTA announcement of crackdown, New Yorkers have released videos of officers using excessive force against people for evading the fare, or even just for selling churros in the subway station. The MTA claims the new policing effort against fare evasion will save them $200 million over the next four years. This is a ridiculous claim on multiple fronts. For one thing, people aren’t all of a sudden going to roll over and pay if they literally cannot afford the subway fare. Secondly, the expansion of police forces will cost $249 million over the next four years – much more than the MTA plans to save.

All of this shows how out of touch with reality the MTA leadership and Governor Cuomo are. Rather than pushing for, say, increased taxes on the rich to help fund the transit system, their logic says, let’s squeeze more money out of poor and working people, despite the fact that New York is one of the richest cities in the world. Clearly, Cuomo and the MTA do not value the lives of the poor, and are only motivated by ways to save and make more money.

The MTA is also attempting to save money off the backs of working people through the exploitation of transit workers. In May 2019, when the transit workers’ contract was up for renewal, the MTA made an insulting first offer that would have resulted in major concessions on the part of transit workers. The MTA’s stubbornness in pushing their agenda forced the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 to go through six months of contract negotiations to fight for workers’ rights. While the TWU Local 100 was able to secure wage increases and other wins for workers in the new contract that got approved in January 2020, the MTA forced through increases in workers’ healthcare costs, adding higher charges for emergency room visits and brand-name prescription drugs.

The MTA is also now pushing for workers to act as a kind of secondary police force in helping to stop fare evasion – something that is not in transit workers’ job training, and that puts them at risk of potentially dangerous and violent situations. The MTA boasts that it will save millions of dollars as a result of their new contract and budget plan. If the employer is saving so much money, this means that they plan to find whatever ways they can to further undermine the rights and wellbeing of transit workers.

Most resistance to the MTA’s new attacks on poor and working people has come in the form of demonstrations against the crackdown on fare evasion and the hiring of 500 new cops. Forces on the ground have mobilized around these issues, and two well-attended actions were held in late 2019, with a third held at the end of January.

In spite of this mass pushback and disapproval, Governor Cuomo and the MTA have chosen to spend the city’s money on hiring more cops rather than actually paying transit workers living wages and fixing the broken down subway system. This decision is an attack on poor and working people on many levels. First, the cops are literally attacking poor people who cannot afford the subway fare by brutally harassing them with excessive force. Second, the neglect to actually fix the broken down subway system is an attack on poor and working people who need to get to work on time to avoid facing unemployment, which could of course, for some, lead to homelessness. Third, the MTA’s incompetence is also an attack on transit workers.

When transit workers are forced to fix urgent problems with the subways that happen on a daily basis, their lives and health are put directly in danger as they work in the subway tunnels while subway service continues to operate. So by not setting aside greater resources to actually pay transit workers a living wage, give them sufficient healthcare benefits, and fix problems more proactively, the MTA is directly attacking the health and wellbeing of transit workers, which of course, in turn, results in a less functional subway system that continues to put poor and working people at risk of losing their jobs.

Bearing all of this in mind, when Cuomo and the MTA decide not to invest the resources (resources which they clearly have if they can afford to hire so many cops) in fixing a broken subway system, they are not just causing an inconvenience for people – they are actually putting poor and working people’s lives directly in danger.

The situation with New York’s subway system is yet another example of how capitalism time and again fails working people. The problem is, Cuomo and the MTA only see the subway system through the eyes of the bosses and the rich. If New York’s leaders and those in charge of the MTA acted from a working-class perspective, they would understand why the transit system is broken; they would understand that the system will remain broken until it actually pays transit workers living wages, and puts resources into ensuring that poor and working people can get to their jobs on time, rather than attacking them over a $2.75 subway fare. But such sensible thinking will never come out of a capitalist system because capitalism is all about more profit for the employers, no matter how much that means exploiting workers and neglecting the needs of the working class and poor.

Only under socialism can we imagine a system where transit workers get a living wage along with the healthcare and other benefits they need; where the transit authorities prioritize fixing broken subway equipment and infrastructure because they actually value the lives of working people who rely on the subway to get to work; and where there is no need for cops in the subway stations because there is no need for a constantly increasing subway fare in the first place. Only under socialism can we have a transit system that truly works for all and reflects the needs of poor and working people.

#NYCNY #CapitalismAndEconomy #Editorials #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #NewYork #NYPD #Antiracism #MTA #Subway #FTP