Mayor Adams is bringing Sean Duffy, the pinnacle of President Trump’s Division of Transportation, on a tour of town subways Friday, in keeping with a shock announcement from the mayor’s workplace.
“I’m going to talk about our success in the subway system … 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 mentioned on NY1 earlier than affirming that he helps “[Gov. Hochul’s] initiative of implementing congestion pricing.”
Adams additionally mentioned he would convey Duffy to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and discuss to him typically about New York Metropolis’s infrastructure wants.
“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 mentioned 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.”
Mayor Adams arrives to talk at a press convention within the Herald Sq. subway station on March 20, 2025 in New York Metropolis. (Barry Williams/ New York Day by day Information)
The DOT secretary’s participation within the day by day ritual of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers comes lower than two weeks after Duffy referred to as the subway system a “s–thole” whereas filling potholes in New Jersey.
That remark got here amid Duffy’s subway scare ways, with the secretary threatening to withhold federal funding for the system over perceptions of crime — regardless of the NYPD declaring 2024 the most secure 12 months for straphangers in additional than a decade.
Adams wouldn’t inform reporters which station he can be taking Duffy to — nor whether or not the Wisconsinite would even board a subway.
Within the midst of a back-and-forth relating to security stats final week, MTA chairman Janno Lieber invited Duffy to journey the practice with him and see the system for himself.
President Donald Trump listens as Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks on the White Home, Jan. 30, 2025. (AP Photograph/Alex Brandon)
Whereas town — not the MTA — is chargeable for paying the police who patrol the subway system, Duffy’s determination to satisfy with Adams and never transit bosses comes because the mayor is below rising hearth for his warming ties to the Trump regime amid its dismissal of his corruption indictment.
However Adams defended his determination to satisfy with Duffy Friday.
“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 instructed reporters. “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,’” he mentioned.
