Mayor Eric Adams pledged to protect New Yorkers the day after a gunman shot a subway rider on a Manhattan-bound Q train.

“It is my responsibility to keep New Yorkers safe,” the mayor said Monday. “I am not going to tell New Yorkers to do something that I am not going to do, because real leaders lead from the front.”

“And by swiping this metro card and entering the system I am leading from the front,” Adams said at an Upper Manhattan subway station on his way to City Hall.

It was intended to be a clear sign to New Yorkers that he’s on top of making the subway system safer.

“They have not witnessed in a long time the type of policing that I am going to do in our subway system,” the mayor told reporters on the platform. “It is my belief that we have really restricted these officers from doing their job. We’re moving in a new direction. We are going to have officers do their job, not ignore quality of life issues, fare evasion.”

Adams talked about adding patrols, but the NYPD says a thousand extra officers are already deployed into the transit system each day.

The city is also testing this weapons detection technology, which the mayor said could eventually rove the subway system looking for guns. And Adams added he’s trying to negotiate with Port Authority to place scanners at the bus terminal to stop the flow of guns into New York from out of state.

First, he’s trying to show confidence in the system itself by riding the rails.

Immediately one straphanger spoke to the mayor about gun violence.

“A lot of people are getting shot,” the rider told the mayor.

But with others he tackled different topics, including getting a tattoo after he met a tattoo artists on the subway platform in the Bronx.

“Yes, me and my mom so she can be right next to my heart all the time,” the mayor said pointing to his chest. “And I found my tattoo artist. That’s why you have to be on the train. When you’re on the train you find all the things that you need.”

At times, the mayor just blended in like any normal New Yorker. Even so, he claims, this is the right moment for a former cop to be leading the city.

“I thank god I am the mayor right now and not those that don’t understand the urgency of this moment,” Adams said.