SUNNYSIDE, Queens (WABC) — As the varsity 12 months will get underway, New York Metropolis is launching a push to attract consideration to the lethal penalties of subway browsing.
On Tuesday, Mayor Eric Adams, Faculties Chancellor David Banks and MTA Chair Janno Lieber unveiled a brand new program — developed by college students for college students — to cease the damaging follow.
They gathered on the thirty third Avenue-Rawson Avenue subway station, which has been well-liked with teenagers browsing, many occasions within the hours after faculty.
The initiative, additionally supported by Gov. Kathy Hochul, known as “Subway Browsing Kills – Trip Inside, Keep Alive.” Town is popping to the youth for solutions after 5 teenagers misplaced their lives subway browsing this 12 months.
WATCH: NYC unveils program to cease subway browsing
“Every subway browsing dying takes tragically strips younger New Yorkers of promising futures,” Adams mentioned. “We can not endure one other tragedy on our trains. That is why we’re partnering with the MTA on an progressive marketing campaign to lift consciousness, and we’ve got recruited true social media specialists to assist lead it: younger New Yorkers. Our younger individuals know finest the right way to attain their friends, they usually wish to assist maintain their buddies secure. We’ll guarantee that each younger New Yorker understands: ‘Subway Browsing Kills – Trip Inside, Keep Alive.'”
The initiative introduced Tuesday will embrace:
-Public service bulletins in stations recorded by college students
-Digital signage throughout stations
-Pupil-created graphics and animations, posters and banners throughout stations and distributed in faculties
-Bodily palm playing cards distributed at faculties and in stations
-Faculty swag together with planners, pens and pencils, notepads, and sticky notes
-Social media posts throughout platforms, together with TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube within the type of posts, reels/shorts, and influencer collaborations
-Distribution of latest pupil MetroCards accompanied by a “Subway Browsing Kills – Trip Inside, Keep Alive” palm card
-Anti-surfing messages on the again of some MetroCards on the market in subway station MetroCard merchandising machines.
Meta, Google, and TikTok are additionally making area obtainable on their platforms to assist amplify the brand new messaging marketing campaign. By means of a partnership with Hochul’s workplace, Google is making area obtainable for the marketing campaign to play on YouTube.
That comes after Adams blasted the social media platforms months in the past for not proscribing subway browsing content material sufficient. Now the tech firms are bearing down.
The NYPD is contributing to the marketing campaign by deploying officers to stations on out of doors elevated strains and by conducting dwelling visits with youths who’ve been noticed using exterior of trains.
“A viral video is just not value your life,” mentioned DOE Chancellor David C. Banks. “Led by college students from the Excessive Faculty of Artwork and Design, this marketing campaign is really made by college students, for college students, and I am so pleased with all of the work and advocacy that has been executed by our younger individuals. Subway browsing kills, and much too lots of our vivid younger college students have died attributable to this pattern. Right this moment, and day-after-day, I am urging each baby to experience inside and keep alive.”
In June, a 14-year-old boy fell to his death onto the tracks after getting into that station and climbing onto the roof of a Quantity 7 subway automotive. The sufferer, recognized as Jevon Fraser, was taken to Cohen Youngsters’s Medical Middle in crucial situation with extreme head trauma. He was pronounced lifeless just a few hours later.
And the week earlier than that another 14-year-old was killed whereas subway browsing in Brooklyn.
Windinson Garcia, 14, and Brian Crespo obtained on high of a Manhattan-bound L practice on the Broadway Junction cease on June 22 and have been knocked off when the practice entered the tunnel earlier than reaching the Bushwick-Aberdeen Ave cease. Crespo was killed whereas his good friend Garcia was badly injured.
The MTA retains statistics on individuals seen using on high of trains or in-between automobiles. In 2019, 490 individuals have been seen “using exterior of trains,” based on an MTA report.
In 2020, the quantity dropped to 199, however then rose to 206 in 2021. Final 12 months alone, that complete exploded to a whopping 928.
In keeping with the NYPD, as of June 23, arrests for “unsafe using,” which incorporates subway browsing, greater than doubled from this time final 12 months.
This 12 months has already seen 139 arrests, in comparison with simply 68 in 2021.
ALSO READ | NJ Transit clerk retiring after 40 years gets surprise send off
———-
* Download the abc7NY app for breaking news alerts
Submit a tip or story concept to Eyewitness Information
Have a breaking information tip or an concept for a narrative we must always cowl? Ship it to Eyewitness Information utilizing the shape under. If attaching a video or photograph, terms of use apply.
