NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board has passed a resolution supporting the right to ban repeat criminal offenders from subways and buses.
The resolution was proposed at a committee meeting on Monday by board member Sarah Feinberg, the former head of the Federal Railroad Administration [See “New York MTA to consider subway, bus ban for repeat criminal offenders,” Trains News Wire, June 25, 2019].
The MTA has no actual authority to ban repeat offenders, which would require an act of the state legislature, but the resolution called for a “mechanism” allowing it to do so.
Patch New York City reports that one board member, David Jones, abstained from the vote, voicing concerns that such bans could prevent people from getting to work or to mental-health care, increasing their reliance on crime. “I’m just worried that we don’t use a sledgehammer to take on a problem which is sever, but is dropping every month we have reports,” Jones said. The New York Police Department reported a 7% drop in subway felonies in May over the same month a year earlier.
