MTA & Cops Cut Subway Graffiti By 46%
For those who have ridden the NYC Subway for a long time, graffiti is something that in one way or another was apart of the system. For years, the MTA & NYPD have teamed up to combat the problem which once plagued the system completely. However in the present, the problem is considered much more isolated as compared to the past but that does not stop both agencies from combating it. Their latest efforts have proven effective as for the current year, graffiti raids have dropped by 46%. Pete Donohue of the New York Daily News has more in this report:
Polic patrols and Transit surveillance teams have slashed the number of subway graffiti attacks nearly in half, officials told the Daily News.
Between January and May 2007, vandals trespassing in dark subway tunnels and railyards ringed with razor wire carried out 98 major spray-paint “hits.”
They have managed just 53 graffiti raids this year – a 46% drop – according to NYC Transit statistics.
“The word is getting out,” NYC Transit Vice President Vincent DeMarino said. “It’s not so easy in New York anymore. You have a good chance of getting caught.”
After a dramatic spike in vandalism, NYC Transit launched the “Eagle Team,” a surveillance outfit comprising mostly retired police detectives and supervisors, two years ago.
Click here for the complete report.
This is refreshing news to me as the physical destruction of public property is not art. I don’t care if the work rivaled the best drawings or paintings in history, subway stations, cars, tunnels, etc… are not the place for such work. I am also glad to see a reduction in scratchiti which might have been just as bad as eyesore if not worse. While the efforts to maintain a clean system are expensive, they are vital if we are to ever have the best possible product for riders. I also support complete prosecution of the creeps responsible for any destruction.
xoxo Transit Blogger
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If subways are no a place for an art piece, why it needs to be fully covered by commercial advertising forcing you to buy it? That is not place for commercial either.