Trump Official Threatens to Withhold M.T.A. Funding Over Safety Data

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Sean Duffy, the U.S. Shipping secretarial assistant, demanded a long lean of inside information about crime in the subway and on buses in New York.

By Stefanos Chen

The Trump administration threatened on Tuesday to withhold federal funding from New York’s mass transit network if the Metropolitan Transportation Authority did not respond to a series of demands about efforts to prevent crime on the city’s subway and buses.

Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, said in a letter that the M.T.A. Must provide a long list of details about crime in New York City’s transit system, including expenditures on programs to combat it, or face the prospect of losing an untold sum of federal funding.

The threat comes amid a continuing battle between the Trump administration and the state-run transit agency over the congestion-pricing toll program that began operating in Manhattan in January. Mr. Trump has moved to kill the program and has given the authority until Friday to abandon it. Gov. Kathy Hochul and M.T.A. Leaders have sued to keep it intact.

Mr. Duffy’s letter did not mention congestion pricing, but transit experts and legal observers have said that the federal government might threaten to withdraw funding from other projects to gain leverage in its opposition to the toll.

The M.T.A. Relies on billions of dollars a year from the federal government to improve service and is seeking $14 billion from Washington in its next five-year capital budget.

But it was unclear what the federal agency was aiming to accomplish. Crime in the subway has been trending down in New York City, and much of the data related to its prevention is publicly available.

The letter, addressed to Janno Lieber, the head of the M.T.A., demands that the transit authority share the number of assaults on transit workers in the last two years; statistics on fare evasion; attacks on passengers, including the number who were pushed onto train tracks; and evidence of its efforts to prevent these crimes, among other requests.

“People traveling on the N.Y.C.T. System to reach their jobs, education, health care and other critical services need to feel secure and travel in a safe environment free of crime,” Mr. Duffy wrote, referring to the division of the M.T.A. That operates the subway and buses.

He added, “I appreciate your prompt attention to this matter to avoid further consequences, up to and including redirecting or withholding funding.”

In a statement, John J. McCarthy, the chief of policy and external relations at the M.T.A., said the agency was “happy to discuss” its continuing efforts to reduce crime in the transit system. He noted that the authority was already making progress, with subway crime down 40 percent, compared with the same period in 2020, shortly before the pandemic. Fare evasion was also declining, he said.

Ed Shanahan contributed reporting.

Stefanos Chen is a Times reporter covering New York City’s economy. He previously covered real estate in the city for over a decade. More about Stefanos Chen

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