Exclusive | NYPD seizes over 700 blades on NYC transit so far this year — a stunning 190% increase compared to 2023

No wonder subway riders feel like they’re on a knife’s edge.

The number of blades seized by the NYPD on public transit has soared so far this year, skyrocketing 73% in the first three months of 2025 over the same period last year, and 190% more than the first quarter of 2023, The Post has learned. 

Cops have seized 723 blades during arrests this year as of Sunday compared to 417 in the same period last year, and 249 blades in 2023, the data show.

The number of guns taken during arrests has also surged — going from nine in 2023 to 12 in 2025, a 33% jump, the data show.

The NYPD attributed the increase in confiscated weapons to more enforcement of lower-level subway infractions with a new quality-of-life division targeting violations like stretching across subway seats and entering through emergency gates.

“Something small can lead to something much larger,” a police source said.

“If you don’t enforce that emergency gate violation then you could have a guy with a gun on the subway,” the source said. “If you don’t stop someone who’s laying across the seats, then you could have a guy with a large bladed knife on him. There’s a reason why these things are important.”

One recent alleged blade runner was Alvin Henigan, 44, was busted around 11 p.m. on March 12 after cops rousted him because he was laying across a subway seat on a Coney Island D train, police said.

Henigan allegedly had a large red knife in plain view in his left jacket pocket and a suspected crack pipe, police said.

He was charged with weapon and drug possession, but was sprung the next day without bail, court records show.

The frequent transit offender has been arrested nearly 60 times in the past, including for assault, robbery and a shooting, police sources said.

Another armed straphanger, Donald Simmons, 46, was stopped when he entered the subway through an emergency gate at the Utica Avenue station in Brooklyn on March 17, cops said.

“They stopped him,” a police source said. “They brought him back to the precinct and realized he was a transit offender and he had a loaded firearm on him.”

Simmons was charged with gun possession and fare evasion, cops said.

“Overall arrests are up 73% and fare evasion arrests are up 118%,” an NYPD spokesperson said. “This is a result of our sustained engagement of unlawful conduct and focused enforcement.”