New York is tapping the National Guard to combat crime on its subways. Here’s why Philly isn’t doing the same.

As Philadelphia copes with a surge of violent crime on and around SEPTA, neighboring New York is taking bold steps to combat crime on its public transit system.

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday that she would be deploying thousands of officers, including National Guard and state police troopers, to patrol New York City’s subway system and check commuters’ bags in an attempt to reduce crime.

In Philadelphia, there were several shootings involving SEPTA this week alone, including a shooting Wednesday at one of the city’s busiest intersections that left eight Northeast High School students wounded and two SEPTA buses riddled with bullets.

But city and state leaders have stopped short of calling for the National Guard to move in to stem the flow of violence.

In previous remarks, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker had alluded to the possibility, particularly to help address the open-air drug market in Kensington. But any deployment of the National Guard would require approval from Gov. Josh Shapiro, who has said he wasn’t considering such drastic action.

While Parker was noncommittal Thursday morning about seeking assistance from the National Guard, Shapiro was clear: He’s still not considering it.

“I have no plans to deploy the National Guard on the streets of Philadelphia,” Shapiro said in an interview Thursday morning.

Hochul said she would deploy 1,000 members of the National Guard, state police, and the transportation authority to check riders’ bags and monitor platforms for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

As of January, theft was the main driver of a spike in crime on the system, the New York Times reported.

During an interview on WURD radio, Parker was asked whether she would consider seeking assistance from the National Guard just a day after Hochul announced that she was calling in the Guard to patrol New York City’s transit system. Parker said her administration is engaging with “every stakeholder and every resource available” and would unveil a more comprehensive public safety plan around her 100th day in office, which falls in early April.

But she added: “For the person who’s waiting to post or the reporter who’s waiting to write ‘Cherelle wants the National Guard on SEPTA,’ that is not what I just said.”

”Right now, we are using a holistic perspective, focused on prevention, intervention, and enforcement,” she said. “And every partner who we need to potentially assist us, we are working toward it.”

At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel suggested deploying more police officers to combat gun violence in the city. He abruptly ended the news conference when a reporter asked about the use of the controversial tactic known as stop-and-frisk, in which police stop and pat down a person in search of weapons or drugs.

Some of the measures announced by law enforcement officials include “SEPTA checks,” where Philadelphia police will board buses to talk to operators and conduct searches, said Frank Vanore, the Philadelphia police deputy commissioner of investigations.

SEPTA Transit Police Chief Charles Lawson said SEPTA police officers would work on how to better monitor the daily school dismissals with thousands of students using SEPTA to get home.

He said SEPTA transit officers would combat gun violence with strict enforcement of lesser criminal violations and regular searches of detained suspects for firearms.

SEPTA also plans to deploy more police officers on buses, especially in areas identified as trouble spots.

Lawson said the transit agency would also prioritize getting police officers on buses at critical times, including when school is letting out and crowds of teens gather to catch buses home or transfer to another line at some of the busier stops.

This week alone, there have been four shootings, three of them fatal, on and around SEPTA buses. On Tuesday night on Snyder Avenue near Broad Street, a suspect stepped from a Route 79 bus and fired a gun through the door, fatally striking a 37-year-old passenger, Carmelo Dreyton.

On Monday, 17-year-old Dayemen Taylor was fatally shot boarding a No. 6 bus after leaving Imhotep Institute Charter High School. Police believe he was targeted by two young men in hoodies and masks who ran up from behind, wielding guns.

And Sunday night, Sawee Kofa, 27, was shot and killed after an argument broke out on a SEPTA bus in Oxford Circle, and both he and the shooter got off the bus, police said.

Inquirer staff writers Ryan W. Briggs and Thomas Fitzgerald contributed to this article.