Good morning. It’s Thursday. Today we’ll look at the ramifications of a letter from the secretary of transportation requesting data on crime in the subway. We’ll also look at why an independent commission says closing the Rikers Island jail complex should be someone’s full-time job.

It wasn’t really about crime. Or was it?

A letter from Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, demanded details about crime in subways and on buses in New York City. He wrote that passengers “need to feel secure and travel in a safe environment free of crime.”

But subway crime has declined 40 percent so far this year, compared with the same period in 2020, shortly before the pandemic. Fare evasion was down 25 percent in the last half of 2024, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Janno Lieber, the chairman of the transit agency, deflected a question about whether Duffy’s letter was a threat. “I feel like the kid who gets called on” by a teacher “when you’ve actually done your homework,” Lieber said. “We have done so much to improve subway safety.”

But to transit watchers and officials in New York, the possible subtexts of Duffy’s letter mattered more than the subject itself. Here is a look at some of them.