The rate of subway crime in the Big Apple has declined since the launch of a new safety plan in October, Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Friday.

During a joint appearance at the Fulton Transit Center in Lower Manhattan, officials unveiled NYPD figures that showed subway crimes occurred at a rate of 1.7 incidents per 1 million riders during the first three weeks of this year, down from 2.3 incidents per million in 2021 and 2022.

The rate is now nearly at the same level of 1.5 incidents per 1 million riders before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which ridership plunged and crime spiked to 2.8 per 1 million.

Major subway crimes since October also dipped 16% compared to the period from October 2021 through January 2022, with the number of incidents decreasing from 565 to 477. 

Adams, who earlier this week said straphangers are enjoying a “cleaner” and “safer” subway commute, credited the “Cops, Cameras and Care” program that he and Hochul unveiled in late October and thanked the governor for her help in paying for it.

“When we had we had a blazing fire in our subway system, we had to deal with that fire and that’s what the governor and I said,” he said.

Adams, a former NYPD transit cop, also said that “we’re going to continue to pivot and shift” to drive down crime even further.

Hochul said $62 million in state money had been earmarked for 1,200 daily overtime shifts for NYPD and MTA cops, a key component of the program.

That funding is set to run through the end of the state’s fiscal year on March 31, according to the governor’s office, which couldn’t immediately say how much had been spent.

Adams dodged a reporter’s question on how much the program was costing the city, saying that the Office of Management and Budget “will give you the exact numbers.”

But he defended the spending as vital to the Big Apple.

“I hear all the time, ‘Well, how much does it cost?'” he said. “I want to be clear: There is no price tag on public safety.”

Adams also called the subway system “the lifeblood of our city.”

“If people don’t utilize this system it will impact business. It will impact tourism. It will impact the ability to function and it will cripple our economy,” he said.

“That is the price tag that’s important to me. This system will be safe, it will be functional, and it will be free from the disorder that we inherited in 2022.”

Adams also compared the results of the anti-crime program to those of his controversial plan to crack down on rule-breaking and remove homeless people from the subways.

“It took a few months to rid our systems of the encampments. It took a few months to get 3,000 people to go into safe havens and supportive housing,” he said.

“We know there are long-term things we have to do. But as the mayor and the governor, we have to deal with the immediate fire right now while we deal with the long-term plan.”

Adams added: That’s how we function: Let’s deal with the immediate and then we build out the long term.”