A few days ago, a man struck a woman with a metal pipe in a Manhattan subway station. A day or two before that, a man attempted to sexually assault a woman in a Brooklyn subway station. A few days before that, a man pushed a woman onto the tracks at another Manhattan subway station. A few days before that, a man trying to steal a backpack slashed the victim with a knife.
Lots of people ride the subways and they are still safe for most riders. But New York police say that transit crime is increasing even as overall crime in the city is on the decline.
Despite this, we — or at least New Yorkers — are supposed to “fall in love with stuffy, crowded subways,” argues Aaron Gordon in Medium. “If we’re ever going to make cities work,” says Gordon, “we need to accept, and come to love, a fundamental truth: Packed urban transit is good urban transit.” Continue reading
