are scared of it. yeah. back before even in middle school i ve been followed him. i m always scared. reporter: the subway is part of the fabric of new york. it s not widely loved, you can travel anywhere in the city for $2.75. i would have another wait to get to my shop. this is my only way of transportation. reporter: similar viewpoint from this woman waiting for a train at the 36th street station. i have no other choice so the prices are pretty high on uber and lyft. you do it because you have to? yes. reporter: the subway has more riders than anywhere else on the planet. there are 400 subway stations in the system. before the covid pandemic an average of 5.5 million passengers rode it every
for $2.75. i don t have another way to get to my shop. this is my only way of transportation. reporter: similar viewpoint from this woman, waiting for a train at that 36th street station. i have no other choice. the prices are pretty high on uber and lyft. you do it because you have to? yes. reporter: the new york city subway system has more riders than any other system in the western hemisphere. according to the new york city transit authority, there are 472 subway stations in the system, and in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, an average of 5.5 million passengers rode the subway each and every weekday. to interest year, approximately 1.7 billion passengers road the subway. that s more than five times the population of the united states. almost every we talked to has a strategy for staying safe.
know. yeah. so you take the train every day. can you imagine though this was a local, right? yeah. if it was an express, it was between a long stop. . so stops are seven to ten minutes, right? he could have yeah, it was between 59th street and 36th street. so that s about, i would say, about a three, three minutes if it s all clear. but the conductor made it clear a few stops before that, there was some train traffic ahead of us. so between the stops, there would be some stoppage. ultimately we get to the station. so what happened was the drama started to happen at the local station before 36th street, because we are on the express line going to manhattan. between the local station and the 36th street station, you are right there. we were right there by the train station.
get hurt. and for those passengers who were injured, especially in critical condition, i want to wish them a full and speedy recovery. yeah, we all are sending our prayers and best wishes to those individuals. take me back to this morning when the subway car began filling up with smoke and then you heard gunshots. what do you remember? what did you think at the time was happening? well, sure. it started as a regular morning. i took my train to work, and i was standing next to the end door of the subway car, the one you can pass from one car to another. as we were approaching the 36th street station in sunset park, and we were still in the tunnel, i look at my right side and notice the train began to fill with smoke. and people started running towards me. first i thought it was probably one of those electrical fires under the track. because i couldn t see the
canisters and a round. many of those injured collapsed on to the subway platform while others were helped to safety. though that subway station is equipped with security cameras which may help identify the shooter. new york city mayor eric adams said a malfunction prevented them from recording anything at the time of the attack. so far, police are calling a man connected to the shooting a person of interest. he s 62-year-old frank james. nypd identified him last night, nearly 12 hours after the shooting. police say he rented a u-haul van in philadelphia which was found about five blocks from the kings highway station, that s elsewhere in brooklyn that was discovered yesterday afternoon. that s about five miles from the 36th street station when shooting occurred. the key to the van along with a credit card with james name on it were found at the scene. officers discovered a handgun used, three magazine clips, a hatchet and a bag filled with