The forces of decay still rule New York

opinion

editorial

In charge of the Post Editorial Board

March 19, 2023 | 6:16 p.m

In yet another victory for the forces of decadence sweeping New York City: bums, scoundrels and teenage thugs are already affecting the MTA’s futuristic new subway cars.

As The Post’s Matthew Sedacca reports, on Tuesday he found “three homeless men and an addict” in “variable states of consciousness in four of the 10 fancy cars” on the $27 million train. “One man went outside and muttered to himself, and others lay down on benches to take a nap at rush hour.”

Homeless people seem to prefer new cars because they heat up better than older models.

Too bad it can make the trains stink. “It still smells bad, and there’s still someone lying in the seat,” commented one passenger. “I definitely expected better.”

Also seen: “a group of teenagers in the gap between two cars, dangling their arms under the moving train to record the sound of the wheels.”

The Post also saw smoking (tobacco and pot), drinking beer and other illegal behavior on the subway.

Earlier in the week, the new train made headlines when another group of teenagers pulled a 15-year-old autistic boy from a car and beat him on the platform, shouting racial epithets.

“You can have the best equipment on the subway, but if you don’t have the level of security to protect passengers, what’s the point?” asked Charlton D’souza of the traffic advocacy group Passengers United.

Mind you, the NYPD (with funding help from Gov. Kathy Hochul) has managed to reduce subway disorder in recent months by paying overtime for a reinforced police presence underground.

But OT is only sustainable for so long; cops need to sleep and have personal lives. In addition, the force is facing record levels of departures.

And, as Nicole Gelinas points out, crime on the subway yet it hasn’t returned to 2019 levels and likely won’t unless the legislature finally accepts serious fixes to its ill-fated criminal justice “reforms.”

New Yorkers elected Mayor Eric Adams to bring crime and disorder below and above ground, and he’s trying. (Same as MTA management: the new trains have a lot of cameras and other features they should stimulus safety.)

But law enforcement still has a large following in Albany, in City Hall and in the prosecutor’s office. It seems voters have to do a lot more “choosing” to get the change they want.

Until politicians get the message, as Sedacca points out, “we can’t have good things.”