Mayor Eric Adams announces new safety initiatives for NYC streets, sidewalks, and subways
NEW YORK -- With crime still crushing the city, Mayor Eric Adams has kicked off the start of summer with a number of new initiatives to make the subways and streets safer.
As CBS2's Marcia Kramer reported Tuesday, "crushing" is definitely part of the summer crime-fighting strategy, with motor crushing and pulverizing taking the stage as both the mayor and police commissioner pledged to make the streets and sidewalks a whole lot safer.
The checkered flag came down -- a flag used in car races to signal the first car over the finish line -- as Adams sought to finish off ATVs, dirt bikes and motorcycles confiscated by the NYPD because they are illegal, dangerous, and terrorize communities.
"Today, as we stand in the shadow of the Freedom Tower, we are freeing ourselves from these destructive pieces of machinery that are on our streets. They will be crushed today so that they can never terrorize our city again," Adams said.
"Since January, the NYPD has seized over 2,000 of these vehicles citywide. As the mayor said, that's nearly over 80 percent more than we took by this time last year," NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said.
The police commissioner also officially announced what Mayor Adams made public last week -- that in an effort to increase police presence on the subways and cover more ground, cops will now be split up into solo patrols. Group patrols will end, except at some of the larger stations and at night.
"During the overnight hours, we will have police officers that are doing train patrol. You will have two officers on the train, but they won't be standing together. One would have the back end and walk through. One would have the front end and walk through," Adams said. "This is a smart way of deploying our police officers."
READ MORE: Mayor Eric Adams: NYPD officers will patrol solo in transit system to cover more ground
The mayor also announced a new addition to the subway safety plan, a campaign with the MTA to educate passengers about the safest places to stand on the subway platform.
"Many people don't know that the best place to stand during the late hours is in the conductor's position. There are zebra stripes near the ceiling on a bar that tells you where the conductor position is. We need to educate people to do that. While I was out, I saw women passengers in isolated areas standing alone. That is just unsafe."
The mayor later clarified that he wasn't singling women out. He said the campaign will apply to everyone.
He also said he intends to better deploy cops at parades, adding people will no longer see clusters of cops on street corners.
