Some 350 homeless individuals were recently found living in encampments in subway stations and tunnels, transit officials said yesterday.
The individuals were spread between 29 encampments in tunnels and 89 in stations, according to an MTA survey conducted on Feb. 2 and 3 as part of a “track trespass” task force formed in December to address an uptick in track intrusions. Taskforce leader Jamie Torres-Springer said the tunnel encampments “directly lead to track trespassing incidents,” which the MTA began tracking in detail in January.
MTA bean counters recorded 160 track intrusion incidents in the first month of record-keeping, 40 of which were attributed to mentally ill or emotionally disturbed individuals, Torres-Springer said. Other incidents involved slip-and-falls, intoxication or suicide or attempted suicide, and four more involved shove assaults.
“Last year, there were 1,267 incidents of a person on the tracks, which is a 20 percent increase since 2019,” Torres-Springer said. “Out of those incidents, 200 resulted in someone getting hit by a train and there were 68 fatalities.”
Suicides or attempted suicides accounted for about a quarter of train collisions with individuals, Torres-Springer said.
Encampments are broadly defined and can include “lying down in the sleeping bag, or stretched out,” officials said. All 29 encampments were removed upon discovery.
“We never leave an encampment in place. As soon as we identify an encampment, those people are immediately removed,” said agency spokesman Tim Minton.
To reduce track intrusions, the MTA will test platform barriers at some stations, laser intrusion detection technology and public education to discourage “voluntary” trespassing and communicate to riders “the dangers of going on the tracks.”
Anti-suicide messaging is also a key preventative measure, Torres-Springer said. MTA Chair Janno Lieber said New York City Transit has begun conducting “regularly scheduled” surveys of homeless encampments, and will share what they learn with NYPD.
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ReplyDeleteThe more American citizens live in the street or in the subway, the more housing there is available for the millions of illegals that are being dropped overnight around the country.
Thank you Joe!!!!!!
Those are undocumented democrats, not illegals....get your terminology right..../s
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