Q Train Killing Threatens Subway’s Fragile Comeback
The subway is at a critical moment as transit officials struggle to bring back riders, to shore up the system’s finances and to address fears over safety.
Transit officials in New York City celebrated a major milestone last week: The subway system logged 3.6 million trips in a single day, a pandemic-era record.
Three days later, a Goldman Sachs employee on his way to brunch was fatally shot on the Q train in an unprovoked attack.
The killing was the latest in a series of violent episodes — including a shooting on a train in Brooklyn that injured at least 23 people in April and the fatal shoving of a woman at Times Square station in January — that have made subway riders worried about their safety at a fraught moment for the transit system.
Ridership fell early in the pandemic, and some riders are still worried about being on crowded trains next to people without masks; many commuters have not returned to offices or are coming only a few times a week; and the system has suffered huge revenue losses and could run out of federal pandemic funding after 2023.
The shooting this week was a significant setback in the city’s campaign to bring workers back to offices in Manhattan, Mayor Eric Adams said. And the victim, Daniel Enriquez, was exactly the type of worker he was trying to persuade to return to the subway.
“The call is to come back to work, and the subway system being safe is a major driver to doing that,” Mr. Adams said at a news conference on Monday. “When you have an incident like this, it sends a chilling impact. There’s no getting around that.”
Two years into the pandemic, less than 65 percent of ridership is back, with many riders who are using the subway living in working-class neighborhoods — New Yorkers who do not have a choice to stay home or splurge on a taxi.
The mounting pressures facing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state-run agency that operates the transit system, are now threatening to fundamentally alter the subway, which has long been considered the city’s great equalizer, where New Yorkers from disparate backgrounds ride the train together.
The subway is still overwhelmingly safe. While direct comparisons are challenging, far more people are killed on New York’s City’s streets than on the subway. Traffic deaths have soared in the city during the pandemic to 273 last year, the highest level in eight years.