Trump Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy tours NYC subway with Mayor Eric Adams, says 'not where this needs to be'
Published in News & Features
NEW YORK — A two-stop ride on the B train Friday wasn’t enough to change the mind of Sean Duffy, the head of President Donald Trump’s Department of Transportation, about how dirty and dangerous he thinks the New York City subway system is.
“We’re not where this needs to be,” Duffy said of the subway’s cleanliness and safety after being brought on a brief tour of the system by Mayor Eric Adams.
Duffy added that he had passed someone who appeared unwell during his subterranean journey, and called it “not humane” to have people with mental illness living on the subway.
At a press gaggle following the subway ride, Duffy even said he might try to sic DOGE — Elon Musk’s para-governmental cost-cutting operation — on the MTA, without explaining how Musk’s minions would have any authority over a New York state agency.
“I’m going to offer folks from DOGE to come down and take a look at what MTA is doing, how they’re spending money, and can be more efficient with the taxpayers’ (money) in the state of New York,” Duffy said.
“Can I force MTA to change their ways? I can’t,” he said. “But again, this is a partnership. I’m here with the mayor because I do care about the city.”
Asked by the New York Daily News if he still considered the subway “a s--thole” — the description he gave to most New Yorkers’ daily routine two weeks ago — the Midwesterner was snide.
“Some would say,” he quipped.
The secretary’s short subway stint was orchestrated by the mayor’s office. Adams first let it be known he would bring Duffy for a ride-along during a string of Friday morning TV appearances.
It comes as Duffy has threatened to defund the MTA over subway crime statistics — which are at a decade low — and as the MTA and state government continue to ignore Duffy’s legally dubious order to end congestion pricing.
“I’m going to talk about our success in the subway system ... I’m going to tell him we’re going to keep analyzing congestion pricing to make sure this is good for New Yorkers and what dollars we need,” the mayor said on NY1 before affirming that he supports Gov. (Kathy) Hochul’s “initiative of implementing congestion pricing.”
Adams also said he would bring Duffy to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and talk to him in general about New York City’s infrastructure needs.
“I want the secretary to see everything from our BQE, some of the crumbling infrastructure that we have, I’m going to talk about even federal dollars for our public safety initiative,” he said on PIX11.
“I want to meet with every secretary, I want them to see how this city is the economic engine of the country and we need federal support to continue.”
The DOT secretary’s participation in the daily ritual of millions of New Yorkers comes amid Duffy’s subway scare tactics, with the secretary threatening to withhold federal funding for the system over perceptions of crime — despite the NYPD declaring 2024 the safest year for straphangers in more than a decade.
As of Monday, crime on the subway is down 22% compared to last year, according to NYPD statistics. Adams has for weeks touted the drops in underground crime, but later in the day only chuckled when asked by a Daily News reporter if he had managed to convince Duffy that the subways are safe.
In the midst of a back-and-forth regarding safety stats last week, MTA Chairman Janno Lieber invited Duffy to ride the train with him and see the system for himself.
But multiple sources at the transit agency told the Daily News on Friday that Duffy’s visit had been set up without their participation or knowledge.
Friday found Lieber waiting on the platform at Borough Hall in Brooklyn — a station in the midst of a renovation where it was rumored the transportation secretary would show up.
“We heard today that he might be coming here,” the transit boss told reporters.
Adams wouldn’t tell reporters which station he would be taking Duffy to on Friday.
Nonetheless, the Daily News caught Duffy exiting a motorcade and boarding a B train at the DeKalb Avenue station in Brooklyn. From there he traveled just two stops, alighting at Broadway-Lafayette in SoHo.
Sources told the Daily News that no one from the MTA — a state agency not under the city’s control — was invited to participate in the tour.
Adams praised Duffy, saying he was grateful to him for coming to see the train system “on the ground.”
“Often bureaucrats try to come in and solve problems from their sterilized office,” the mayor said.
While the city — not the MTA — is responsible for paying the police who patrol the subway system, Duffy’s decision to meet with Adams and not transit bosses comes as the mayor is under increasing fire for his warming ties to the Trump regime amid its dismissal of his corruption indictment.
But Adams defended his decision to meet with Duffy on Friday.
“I can’t communicate with him if I just ball up my fist and say, ‘I’m not going to speak with you because you’re a Republican,'” he told reporters. “No, I’m going to open my hand, extend it and shake his hand and say, ‘I want to produce for the city that I love,'” he said.
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