SUNNYSIDE, Queens (WABC) — As the school year gets underway, New York City is launching a push to draw attention to the deadly consequences of subway surfing.
On Tuesday, Mayor Eric Adams, Schools Chancellor David Banks and MTA Chair Janno Lieber will unveil a 14-point program to stop the dangerous practice.
They are gathering at the 33rd Street-Rawson Street subway station, which has been popular with teens surfing, many times in the hours after school.
In June, a 14-year-old boy fell to his death onto the tracks after entering that station and climbing onto the roof of a Number 7 subway car.
The victim, identified as Jevon Fraser, was taken to Cohen Children’s Medical Center in critical condition with severe head trauma. He was pronounced dead a few hours later.
And the week before that another 14-year-old was killed while subway surfing in Brooklyn.
14-year-olds Windinson Garcia and Brian Crespo got on top of a Manhattan-bound L train at the Broadway Junction stop on June 22 and were knocked off when the train entered the tunnel before reaching the Bushwick-Aberdeen Ave stop.
Crespo was killed while his friend Garcia was badly injured.
The MTA keeps statistics on people seen riding on top of trains or in-between cars.
In 2019, 490 people were seen “riding outside of trains,” according to an MTA report.
In 2020, the number dropped to 199, but then rose to 206 in 2021. Last year alone, that total exploded to a whopping 928.
According to the NYPD, as of June 23, arrests for “unsafe riding,” which includes subway surfing, more than doubled from this time last year.
This year has already seen 139 arrests, compared to just 68 in 2021.
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