Subway crime starts at the turnstile and every Democrat fails the test

Pro-crime Democrats are propelling New York toward anarchy and financial ruin by refusing to grapple with the city’s most prevalent crime.All the candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for Gotham’s mayor — including front-runners Andrew Cuomo and Zohrab Mamdani — unanimously oppose increasing penalties for farebeaters.   Their soft-on-crime positions make them unfit for the city’s top job.These pols do not regard law-abiding New Yorkers as their constituents.Instead they’re siding with criminals and left-wing ideologues who excuse crime as a side effect of society’s imperfections.Stopping farebeating keeps dangerous criminals out of the subway system, explains former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly.“In previous administrations, proactive fare evasion enforcement has been a powerful tool in reducing overall subway crime,” Kelly told me.Thieves and assailants don’t swipe a card to get onto the train before they prey on innocent riders. Their first lawless act is jumping the turnstile. And many have rap sheets.Arrests are infrequent, but 45% of those arrested for farebeating in 2023 were already wanted for other crimes — and about 10% of them were carrying weapons.  Clearly, consistent farebeating enforcement would keep thugs out of the subways. A crackdown would also fill the MTA’s empty coffers, eliminating the financial rationale for congestion pricing.Some 14% of subway riders and nearly half of bus riders don’t pay the fare, adding up to an annual $800 million shortfall in MTA revenue.Gov.

Kathy Hochul’s congestion-tax scheme is one way to offset those yearly losses — but it’s a gut punch to law-abiding people driving into Manhattan who work for a living.“If you let the police do their job” against turnstile jumpers, President Donald Trump reminded Hochul when they met at the White House in February, congestion-pricing revenue isn’t needed.“The way it is now,” the president told her, “you feel like a ...