Thursday, October 2, 2014

Cameras coming to subway cars

From the Daily News:

Seeking to keep a constant electronic eye on subway perverts, the MTA is moving to put surveillance cameras in hundreds of new train cars it expects to purchase in coming years.

In a letter to Public Advocate Letitia James that was made public Wednesday, the MTA for the first time committed to making the security upgrade, which has been championed by no less than NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority also will create a new feature on its website to make it easier for victims and witnesses of sex crimes in the subway system to make a report. And the authority also intends to ramp up a public education campaign that aims to increase awareness of the threat posed by sexual predators in the subway, James announced.

Earlier this year, Bratton told the Daily News he would like to see cameras aboard subway cars because they are a useful crimefighting tool — providing valuable videotape evidence for detectives, and serving as a deterrent to those who would commit sex crimes. At the time, the MTA balked at making a commitment, saying only that it was studying the feasibility of camera use on trains.

The MTA will install cameras on 904 R211-class subway cars that it expects to order as part of its 2015-2019 capital plan.

The authority already has contracted with a manufacturer for 300 R179-class subway cars, and the first of those test cars should be delivered in December. The rest of the R179s are set to arrive between July 2015 and January 2017, according to the MTA.

The MTA is looking to install cameras on the R179s, but has not yet made a commitment to do so, officials said.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

And who will man the monitors for all of these new cameras? Who will maintain them to ensure that they are always operating?

Anonymous said...

Aw this is bullshit. Cameras prevent nothing. They're totally reactive, we need cops on the trains and the platforms..

Anonymous said...

Who will maintain them to ensure that they are always operating?

Someone with the right connections - and we do not mean electronic ones.

THOSE will likely be substandard.

Anonymous said...

Take a look at the ceiling height of the average subway car. Yep, you can touch it. There is NO way to guard these cameras against vandalism.

Some ghettosnipe wearing a 'hoody" slaps a sticker over the tiny lens and 'game over'.

Anonymous said...

And who is going to get there in time if something happens???

They dont address the problems they are already aware of, like all the bums who sleep on the trains and platforms.

Video cameras are only good to give to the nightly news crews. Other than that; useless.

Anonymous said...

To prevent fires, let's put fire extinguishers in all the subway cars... And they were there for 60 or years...

Then in one 24 hour period, 100 percent of the them were vandalized or stolen.

The idea of cameras in the cars themselves is a non-starter.

Anonymous said...

Every time I hear of crime in a housing development I hear people (daily news especially) complain about the lack of 'security' cameras. All the do is record a crime if that camera is pointing the right way and the lighting is correct. Criminals don't wear jerseys with their name on it. Cameras do nothing to prevent crime. Won't work in the projects and it won't work on the subway.

Anonymous said...

There used to be 4500 cops in the Transit Police Dept. 19 years after they were merged into NYPD there are about 1250. Feel safe?

JQ said...

more surveillance big brother bullshit.

this nation is doomed,and new york is leading the way down.

Anonymous said...

when will the animal who peddles nutcrackers - alcohol laced Hawaiian Punch, marijuana and child porn on the A train from Jay Street to Mott Avenue Far Rockaway be put out of business?