If Eric Adams gets ousted in November, say goodbye to progress on NYC subway safety

Mayor Eric Adams deserves a cheer for “Subway Safety Plan” wins, but making the transit system truly safe will mean getting a lot more help to Gotham’s seriously mentally ill.

On Monday, Adams announced that the city has placed 3,500 onetime “street” homeless, including 1,000 pulled from the subways, into permanent housing since 2022.

It looks like Adams’ efforts, combined with Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch’s emphasis on quality-of-life policing, are paying off: MTA officials just announced drops in transit-system crime, including a 16.7% dip in robberies and a 9.3% fall in felony assaults, comparing July 2025 to July 2024.

Then again, the subways saw a 19% spike in felony assaults in 2025’s first quarter.

And straphangers still have good reason to be skittish: On Saturday, a screaming maniac shoved a man onto the tracks at the No. 1 50th Street station for no apparent reason; an hour later, another unhinged man stabbed another man in the neck at an East Village station after the two got into a fight.

The city has a lot more dangerously unwell vagrants to get out from underground and into treatment, in other words — and could use continued state reforms to make that easier.

Mayor Adams and Gov. Hochul won some expanded standards for involuntary commitment this year, but the leading mayoral candidates have other priorities.

Zohran Mamdani even wants to convert subway retail spaces into homeless-outreach centers, which would mean more emotionally disturbed people wandering the system.

Forcing unwilling people into treatment sends progressives into conniptions, but true compassion means not letting the seriously mentally ill resist the help they desperately need. 

Adams and Tisch have made some hard-earned strides, but the gains are fragile and unlikely to survive a progressive victory in November.

If Adams gets voted out of office, watch for transit crime to balloon again.