NYC Transit: Subway graffiti down 46 percent

The BMT Canarsie Line L train covered in graffiti in 1976. (Photo by Ed McKernan/NYC Subway)

For the better part of three decades, the debate over subway graffiti has consumed New Yorkers. As I explored in April, some feel graffiti is art while others believe graffiti exhibits simply glorify vandalism. No matter the outcome, New York City Transit and the NYPD are hard at work combating these markings.

Just two weeks after famed graffiti artist Iz the Wiz passed away, Transit and the NYPD say that graffiti hits are down by 46 percent this year over 2007. Pete Donohue has more:

Police patrols and Transit surveillance teams have slashed the number of subway graffiti attacks nearly in half, officials told the Daily News. Between January and May 2007, vandals trespassing in dark subway tunnels and railyards ringed with razor wire carried out 98 major spray-paint “hits.” They have managed just 53 graffiti raids this year – a 46% drop – according to NYC Transit statistics.

“The word is getting out,” NYC Transit Vice President Vincent DeMarino said. “It’s not so easy in New York anymore. You have a good chance of getting caught.”

After a dramatic spike in vandalism, NYC Transit launched the “Eagle Team,” a surveillance outfit comprising mostly retired police detectives and supervisors, two years ago. The agency also struck a new arrangement with city police: The agency would focus on the far-flung railyards while NYPD squads would target tracks between stations, where some trains are parked overnight. With increased cooperation and manpower, they have been able to cover more ground and get results, DeMarino said.

No matter anyone’s personal views on graffiti in the art-vs.-vandalism debate, it is no doubt expensive to maintain graffiti-free cars. As part of an effort to deter graffiti, Transit will not put vandalized trains on the tracks until they are clean, and it can take the agency up to three hours to clean the outside of a car. According to Donohue’s sources, the MTA spent $350,000 in 2007 and just $125,000 in 2008 to clean up the trains.

Over the years, the agency has tried to combat another form of more destructive graffiti — scratchiti, the use of acid to etch glass windows — with less success. As Donohue reminds us, Transit unveiled a pilot program of scratch-resistant ads late last year. That program, according to Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges, is too expensive to implement throughout the MTA’s rolling stock.

In the end, combating graffiti will always be a battle. Those who perpetrate the crime think it a victimless one and will not stop while those fighting it will have to stay one step ahead of artists who have the run of a wide open system. The fight goes on.