For weeks, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has derided the New York City subway, repeatedly making fear-mongering assertions that the nation’s biggest transit system is unsafe.
He has characterized the subway as a hellscape, even though it is used by more than four million riders a day and underpins the financial and cultural capital of the United States. He has threatened to withhold federal funding for the trains unless crime rates decrease, even though crime rates are decreasing.
And on Friday, he and Eric Adams, the increasingly Trump-aligned mayor of New York City, rode the subway together, at Mr. Adams’s invitation. Where or when, exactly, was a bit of a mystery.
What ensued was a cat-and-mouse game involving Mr. Duffy; Mr. Adams; Janno Lieber, the head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority; and a cadre of angry train supporters seeking to confront Mr. Duffy on their home turf.
“So far, no show, it’s been a ‘Where’s Waldo’ game,” said Mr. Lieber, who, with his pro-transit posse, was left pursuing whatever tips they could glean from the internet, and their own network of sources. He spoke to reporters who had gathered expectantly on the platform at the Brooklyn Borough Hall station.
After noting that the M.T.A. carries more people in a day than the country’s aviation system, Mr. Lieber expressed hope that Mr. Duffy would get a proper briefing. He then got on a No. 4 train and went on his way.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mr. Lieber’s boss and the frequent target of Mr. Duffy’s derision, was not invited on the train ride, according to an official in the governor’s office. Kayla Mamelak Altus, a spokeswoman for the mayor, referred questions about Ms. Hochul’s non-invite to Mr. Duffy’s office. A spokeswoman for Mr. Duffy said the mayor invited him “to discuss transit safety and tour the subway.”
Mr. Adams controls the New York Police Department, which patrols a subway system that Mr. Duffy described last month as a “shithole.”
“If people can’t go to the subway and not be afraid of being stabbed or thrown in front of tracks or burned,” he said recently, “we’re going to pull your money.”
But crime on the subway is declining — a point Mr. Adams made during his ride along with Mr. Duffy, the mayor’s spokeswoman said.
In the first three months of 2025, major crimes on the subway fell by 18 percent from the same period last year, police said. And, for the first time in seven years, there were no murders in the transit system during the first quarter of the year. Only about 4 percent of violent crime citywide occurs in the subway, according to an analysis by Vital City, an urban policy think tank.
“Secretary Duffy has literally no idea what he’s talking about,” said Avi Small, a spokesman for Ms. Hochul. “As Mayor Adams and most New Yorkers know, Governor Hochul stepped up to add N.Y.P.D. officers and security resources on public transit. Now, subway crime has declined by double digits and ridership continues to grow.”
Still, Mr. Duffy and other critics of the subway have seized on a recent surge in violent and unpredictable crime underground that has shaken riders, including an incident late last year in which Debrina Kawam, a woman who was sleeping on a train, was set on fire and killed. From 2014 to 2024, the number of violent crimes in the subway, including misdemeanor assaults, has nearly doubled, to 2,745 from 1,445, and is up 15 percent since 2019.
This was not the first time Mr. Adams has recently played host to a Trump official with antagonistic views of New York. He has also met with the president’s so-called border czar, Tom Homan, and promised to help him deport immigrants they say are violent.
Mr. Duffy and Mr. Adams gathered at the mayor’s official residence, Gracie Mansion, where Mr. Duffy said, “infrastructure is nonpartisan,” according to the mayor’s spokeswoman. Then they toured a deteriorating cantilever supporting the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in Brooklyn, according to spokeswomen for both men. The project to repair the cantilever requires federal support.
Mr. Adams and Mr. Duffy were then driven to the subway at DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn, near the famed Junior’s restaurant on Flatbush Avenue. They, along with the head of the Police Department’s transit division, rode the subway for about 10 minutes and disembarked at the Broadway/Lafayette stop in Manhattan.
Along the way, they talked about subway crime and the mayor’s efforts to make it easier to remove mentally ill people from the system, according to Ms. Mamelak Altus.
When they emerged from the train, Mr. Duffy took the opportunity to criticize New York City’s congestion pricing program, which charges drivers to enter parts of Manhattan, and sends the resulting revenue to the transit system.
Mr. Adams has expressed lukewarm support for congestion pricing. Mr. Duffy has vowed to destroy it, and has ordered the state to cease collection of the toll by mid-April.
On Friday, Mr. Duffy continued to deride the scheme, describing it as “classist.”
Early data suggest that congestion pricing, which tolls most drivers $9 to enter Manhattan below 60th Street during peak traffic, has not hurt the local economy, is improving traffic speeds, and is on track to raise $15 billion for badly needed repairs to the region’s mass transit system.
“We hope the secretary enjoyed his field trip to Manhattan and we encourage him to come back soon and ride a train or bus, like 90 percent of commuters to the Central Business District do every single day,” Mr. Small, the governor’s spokesman, said.
Ginia Bellafante contributed reporting.
