A two-stop ride on the B train Friday wasn’t enough to change the mind of Sean Duffy, the head of President Trump’s Department of Transportation, about how dirty and dangerous he thinks the New York City subway system is.
“We’re not where this needs to be,” Duffy said of the subway’s cleanliness and safety after being brought on a brief tour of the system by Mayor Adams.
Duffy added that he had passed someone who appeared unwell during his subterranean journey, and called it “not humane” to have people with mental illness living on the subway. “I don’t know if he’s urinating himself or defecated,” Duffy remarked of the individual he encountered.
At a press gaggle following the subway ride, Duffy even said he might try to sic DOGE — Trump adviser Elon Musk’s para-governmental cost-cutting operation — on the MTA, without explaining how Musk’s minions would have any authority over a New York state agency.
“I’m going to offer folks from DOGE to come down and take a look at what MTA is doing, how they’re spending money, and can be more efficient with the taxpayers’ [money] in the state of New York,” Duffy said.
“Can I force MTA to change their ways? I can’t,” he said. “But again, this is a partnership. I’m here with the mayor because I do care about the city.”
Asked by the Daily News if he still considered the subway “a s–thole” — the description he gave it two weeks ago — the midwesterner was snide.
“Some would say,” he quipped.
Duffy first lobbed the jab at the transit system last month, claiming Gov. Hochul, who controls the MTA, has worked to “make it a s–thole.”
In a statement punching back at Duffy after his latest broadside, Avi Small, Hochul’s spokesman, said the secretary “has literally no idea what he’s talking about.”
“We hope the secretary enjoyed his field trip to Manhattan and we encourage him to come back soon and ride a train or bus — like 90% of commuters to the Central Business District do every single day,” Small said.
The secretary’s short subway stint was orchestrated by the mayor’s office. Adams, who is facing intense heat from fellow Democrats for cozying up to Trump and his allies amid his now-dismissed federal corruption indictment, first let it be known he would bring Duffy for a ride-along during a string of Friday morning TV appearances.
It comes as Duffy has threatened to defund the MTA over subway crime stats — which are at a decade low — and as the MTA and state government continue to ignore Duffy’s legally dubious order to end congestion pricing.
“I’m going to tell him we’re going to keep analyzing congestion pricing to make sure this is good for New Yorkers and what dollars we need,” the mayor said on NY1 before affirming he supports Gov. Hochul’s “initiative of implementing congestion pricing.”
At the gaggle later in the day, though, Duffy, standing alongside Adams, kept his anti-congestion drumbeat going, claiming it’s a “classist” system that makes driving a mode of transportation reserved for “elites.”
“If you’re middle income, lower income, you’re forced into the train,” said Duffy, whose effort to kill congestion pricing has been stalled as Hochul’s administration fights to protect it in court.
Adams also said he would bring Duffy to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and talk to him in general about New York City’s infrastructure needs.
“I want the secretary to see everything from our BQE, some of the crumbling infrastructure that we have, I’m going to talk about even federal dollars for our public safety initiative,” he said on PIX11.
“I want to meet with every secretary, I want them to see how this city is the economic engine of the country and we need federal support to continue.”
Duffy’s participation in the daily ritual of millions of New Yorkers comes amid his subway scare tactics, with the secretary threatening to withhold federal funding for the system over perceptions of crime — despite the NYPD declaring 2024 the safest year for straphangers in more than a decade.
As of Monday, crime on the subway is down 22% compared to last year, according to NYPD statistics. Adams has for weeks touted the drops in underground crime, but later in the day only chuckled when asked by a News reporter if he had managed to convince Duffy that the subways are safe.
In the midst of a back-and-forth regarding safety stats last week, MTA chairman Janno Lieber invited Duffy to ride the train with him and see the system for himself.
But multiple sources at the transit agency told The News Friday that Duffy’s visit had been set up without their participation or knowledge.
As Duffy descended on the city, Lieber found himself waiting on the subway platform at Borough Hall in Brooklyn — a station in the midst of a renovation where it was rumored the Transportation secretary would show up.
“We heard today that he might be coming here,” the transit boss told reporters.
Adams and his office would not tell reporters which station he would be taking the Wisconsinite to on Friday.
Nonetheless, The News caught Duffy exiting a motorcade and boarding a B train at the DeKalb Ave. station in Brooklyn. From there, he traveled just two stops, alighting at Broadway-Lafayette in SoHo.
Adams praised Duffy, saying he was grateful to him for coming to see the train system “on the ground.”
“Often bureaucrats try to come in and solve problems from their sterilized office,” the mayor said.
While the city — not the MTA — is responsible for paying the police who patrol the subway system, Duffy’s decision to meet with Adams and not transit bosses comes as the mayor is under increasing fire for his warming ties to the Trump regime amid its dismissal of his corruption indictment, which many say has left Adams beholden to the president.
But Adams defended his decision to meet with Duffy on Friday morning.
“I can’t communicate with him if I just ball up my fist and say, ‘I’m not going to speak with you because you’re a Republican,’” he said in one of his television appearances. “No, I’m going to open my hand, extend it and shake his hand and say, ‘I want to produce for the city that I love.’”