"Do you think Big Brother is watching you?" Governor Kathy Hochul spoke at a Queens subway yard. "You're correct." She announced a new state program to pay for two cameras in each of the subway cars.
The design philosophy that there is no problem that can't be solved by more expansive and expensive tracking was marked by Hochul's statement. Whether it's more cameras in public, more tracking of our devices, more license plate readers for our cars, or more policing of our social media, the industry and government are ready to sell tracking as the answer to every question of modern life. In New York, these solutions are usually more about perception than reality.
The governor tried to sell technology to New Yorkers as a solution to a problem. These cameras aren't about crimes.
The real reason for tracking isn't about safety, it's about Ridership New York City's transit system has taken a long time to come back. The subway usage has been below average since 2020. It feels like trains are empty for most of the day and late at night. The train cars are not sustainable.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is in a bad financial position. Billions of dollars in federal aid were all that stood between the MTA and financial ruin during the Pandemic. The agency is having a hard time making the math work. The agency used to get most of their funding from subway and bus fares.
Hochul thinks crime is the problem. The perception is that people are still worried about transit crime. Crime is falling and fear is increasing. The fear may be real, but cameras will only make things worse.
The cameras don't work as advertised. More cameras will make tabloids and TV news more gruesome, but it won't lower crime. Even more cameras in every carriage won't close the gap between the perception and reality of subway safety, it will just create more frightening stories that will keep more riders away.
The cameras actually work in that scenario. The transit agency has spent a lot of money on cameras. The cameras didn't work when a man opened fire on a crowded subway car. Neither agency was willing to question their premise that the cameras were needed in the first place as the MTA and NYPD attempted to throw each other under the bus for the failure. The man was found thanks to a gun serial number and background check, but not high-tech transit tracking.
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