Yoga, meditation and prayer: Urban transit workers cope with violence and fear on the job

NEW YORK (AP) — In a dimly lit room strung with fairy lights and ivy, transit workers file in and lie on inflated cots. Soothing piano notes play as a teacher rubs their ankles and toes, helping each with heated blankets and eye masks.

“Breathe in," she says. "Think of a balloon, filling up with fresh energy. Your spine dropping into softness.”

The teacher, Lalita Dunbar, sprays a mist scented with lavender and lemon as she slips around the room.

“At the sound of the chime," she says, “take a deep breath in.”

The relaxation class, held at a union hall for New York City transit employees, has emerged as one of the ways in which transportation workers around the country are trying to manage their fear and anxiety over a rise in violent crime on subways and buses. Concern has grown after a series of especially brutal attacks in recent months against bus drivers, subway operators and station agents.

Reports of crime against transit workers have been rising since the pandemic erupted in 2020, when millions of Americans suddenly avoided subways and buses for fear of contracting COVID-19. Their exodus left transit workers more isolated and vulnerable to attacks.

Yet even with many travelers having returned to subways and buses, the rate of violent assaults on transit systems has remained elevated. The level of crime is all the more striking because it coincides with a steady decline over the past three years in overall violent crime in the United States.

Nationally, the rate of reported major assaults against transit workers reached a 15-year high in 2023, up 47% from 2020, according to an Associated Press analysis of Federal Transit Administration data. And between 2011 and 2023, the rate of assaults more than quadrupled.

By contrast, reports of overall violent crime in...