Surfin' MTA

@NYCTSubway running on your trains is hella fun💯❤️. Hoping to be a Mta worker and get them keys gang💙😃 pic.twitter.com/YP7wNFxOjY

— Valaklikesmen (@valakryie) May 5, 2022

 

Ridgewood Post

Reports of “subway surfing” have jumped by nearly 363% since 2020, according to MTA figures provided to THE CITY.

In the first five months of this year, there have been 449 reported incidents of people riding on top of or outside trains, MTA data shows — almost as many as the 461 in all of 2019.

That’s up from 97 for the same time period in 2020, when subway ridership plummeted by more than 90% during the peak of the pandemic and from 68 last year.

“We have hundreds of recorded incidents that this has occurred in our system in the last few months,” Richard Davey, president of New York City Transit, said Monday during an MTA committee meeting. “I am going to implore anyone who is watching this to tell your kids, to tell your friends: Do not do this.”

The MTA provided the numbers to THE CITY last week amid a string of recent high-profile subway surfing incidents, several of which have been posted to social media.

On Thursday, a 15-year-old boy was critically injured after police said he hit his head against an unknown object while riding atop a No. 7 train as it approached the 111th Street station in Queens.

“Oh my God,” gasped Maritza Santos, 44, whose 14-year-son, Eric Rivera, was killed in November 2019 after striking something as he rode on top of a No. 7 train near Queensboro Plaza. “I can’t believe they don’t learn unless they didn’t see what happened to Eric.

“I’m just shocked that kids are still doing this,” she told THE CITY.

Santos, who has three other sons, said she was pulling for the unidentified teenager, who police said was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center after suffering severe head trauma.

“I pray that he gets well,” she said. “I understand what his family is going through.”

In a graphic video obtained by THE CITY, the teen’s legs dangle over the side of the train car while he lays bloodied on top.

The voice of a woman on the platform can be heard saying in Spanish, “I’m sorry, but this had to happen so that they stop doing this.”