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MTA installs platform barriers at 10 subway stations to prevent fatal slips and shoves

By

Stephen Nessen

Published Aug 29, 2024

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Riders walk by a platform barrier as an L train pulls into the First Avenue station.

 

Stephen Nessen

By

Stephen Nessen

Published Aug 29, 2024

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The MTA has installed new metal barriers on subway platforms in Brooklyn and Manhattan since the start of 2024 — and transit officials said they plan to add even more by the end of the year.

The barriers are now in place at platforms in 10 stations, half of which are on the L line. They’re a little more than 4 feet tall, and are fixed in sections that do not line up with locations where subway car doors open. There is room between each barrier for passengers to board and exit trains.

The new equipment is a nimble solution by the MTA to keep riders from falling — or being shoved — onto subway tracks. The MTA faced calls to make its subway platforms safer after the high-profile 2022 murder of Michelle Alyssa Go, who died after she was shoved in front of a train at the Times Square station by a man who was later deemed emotionally disturbed and unfit for trial.

Following Go’s death, the MTA published a study examining whether it could install full-sized doors on its platforms that only open when a train arrives — similar to those in place on the AirTrains at JFK and Newark airports.

Riders seem merrier thanks to platform barriers now in place at the First Avenue L train station.

Stephen Nessen

The report found that type of barriers could only be installed in 128 of the MTA’s 472 stations, and it would be prohibitively expensive, at $7 billion.

The agency instead moved forward with a cheaper alternative last January, installing the first metal barriers at 191st Street on the 1 line.

NYC subway stations with metal platform barriers

An MTA report on track intrusions in 2022 noted the barriers are helpful, but warned they could also be hazardous.

“While these smaller interventions might be helpful in preventing certain track intrusions, MTA safety experts are concerned that they may risk causing injuries, for instance in the event that a passenger gets caught in a train door and is dragged down the platform,” the report noted.

Still, Sam Schwartz — a former New York City traffic commissioner and chief engineer with the transportation department — argues it’s better than doing nothing at all.

“Sometimes low-tech, low-cost measures are best, especially now that congestion pricing is on hold,” he told Gothamist.

The MTA also sees the smaller barriers as a simple way to make riders safer — and says it will continue to roll them out at more stations across the transit system.

“The goal is to install at one to two stations a month, depending on timing for the delivery of materials,” MTA spokesperson Kayla Shults wrote in an email.

Tagged

new york city

manhattan

transportation

brooklyn

Stephen Nessen

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Stephen Nessen covers transportation. Since 2008 he has reported on everything from Occupy Wall Street, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, Hurricane Sandy, to Trump’s campaign for president. His transportation reporting has taken him everywhere from the MTA’s secret Rail Control Center to the gleaming subways of Seoul. Got a tip? Email [email protected].

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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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