Question: I'd like to talk to you about the homeless on the subways. Are you now accepting responsibility for getting the homeless off the subways? And since the NYPD flooded the end of line station at the World Trade Center today with cops and workers, are you planning to do it at the other end of line stations? There are 38 total. I know you're focusing on 10.
Mayor:Who's responsible for homelessness in the subways? We're all responsible. The State runs the MTA, clearly. All the employees of the MTA who we need to help in this effort in a variety of ways. We need to be the eyes and ears, the MTA police. What we announced yesterday is more places to bring homeless folks from the subway or the street to get them off the street, out of the subway permanently. And what we announced is a vision that we need the MTA to help us with. We'll do our share. We'll devote the police resources, we'll devote the outreach workers, we'll do whatever it takes, but we need the MTA to agree to this plan.
Here's how it goes. We’ve got 10 key stations. They're the end points of subway lines. That's where we have a particular problem. We all know for decades there have been homeless people in the subways going from one end of a line back again, back again, all night long. That needs to stop. The way to stop that is to support those people and help them come in and accept housing, but also to disrupt the pattern. The way to disrupt the pattern is between midnight and 5:00 am, close those stations. Deep clean those stations, which is good for everyone in this moment. Have a shuttle bus that takes any customers who need to get on the subway, take some one-stop up to the next station. Deep clean the stations and everyone has to get out of the stations. Instead of what's happened for years and years, that a homeless person just sits there on the train or maybe gets off the train temporarily, gets right back on it.
I'm going to tell you the stations, just so everyone hears them. It's Coney Island Stillwell Avenue on the D and F, Flatbush Avenue Brooklyn College on the 2 and 5, Jamaica 179th Street on the F train, Jamaica Center, Parsons/Archer on the E, World Trade Center on the E, 96th Street Second Avenue on the Q, Pelham Bay Park on the 6, Van Cortlandt Park 242nd Street on the 1 train, Wakefield 241st Street on the 2 and 5, and Woodlawn on the 4 train.
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