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MTA moves ahead with $1.1B plan to put modern fare gates at 150 subway stations
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
Published Oct 7, 2026
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Ramsey Khalifeh / Gothamist
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
Published Oct 7, 2026
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MTA officials on Wednesday announced the agency is moving forward with a $1.1 billion rollout of modern fare gates after testing the technology at 20 subway stations over the last year.
The new gates have sliding doors instead of turnstiles, and officials said they’ve proven highly effective in reducing high rates of subway fare evasion that cost the agency an estimated $400 million a year. The MTA said the new gates will roll out to 20 more stations by the end of the year, and will eventually expand to cover 150 of the city’s busiest stations.
“Based on the results of this pilot, already we know that this will save taxpayers nearly $100 million a year that otherwise was stolen in fares,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said at a news conference. “That means in a span of a number of years, the gates will literally pay for themselves.”
The new design marks the first time in modern history the MTA has fundamentally redesigned the subway’s turnstiles. The agency updated the turnstiles in the 1990s alongside the launch of the MetroCard, and retrofitted those old gates with new tap-to-pay OMNY fare readers over the last seven years.
The new fare gates all have slightly different designs from three different companies, Cubic, Conduent and STraffic — and all have technology that tracks fare evasion. The new gates reduced fare evasion by 35% since they were deployed, according to MTA data. At two stations where the new gates were tested — Hoyt Street on the 2 and 3 lines, and Nostrand Avenue on the A and C lines — the MTA reported a 72% drop in fare evasion.
“They have cutting-edge sensors, long double doors, they make them nearly impossible to jump over or crawl under and we’re already seeing a difference,” Hochul said.
MTA Chair Janno Lieber has made battling fare evasion a top priority since taking charge of the agency in 2021. He commissioned a “blue ribbon panel” in 2022 to gather feedback from community leaders on addressing the problem. The following year, the agency modified subway gates to prevent riders from “back-cocking,” or pulling back the turnstile slightly in order to slide through.
The agency has also fitted turnstiles with spiked panels and wide paddles to make it more difficult to jump over. Lieber has also targeted the subway’s emergency slam gates, which he’s called a “superhighway of fare evasion.” The MTA has stationed security guards at some emergency gates, and reprogrammed others to only open after a 15-second delay.
But Lieber said “it was clear that if we wanted to make progress [on fare evasion], we had to get these new fare gates.”
The next 20 stations to get the modern gates will be in all four boroughs served by the subway, including busy hubs like 14th Street-Union Square, Forest Hills-71st Avenue, Hoyt-Schermerhorn and 161st Street-Yankee Stadium.
The MTA plans to install the technology at 30 more stations in 2027, but did not provide a timeline for the rest of the rollout. The cost of the project is covered through the MTA’s five-year construction plan, which state lawmakers approved in 2025.
Tagged
new york city
transportation
Ramsey Khalifeh
Ramsey Khalifeh is a transportation reporter on the NYC Accountability desk covering the largest transit system in the country. He was previously a general assignment reporter at Gothamist and worked on the Boston Globe's metro and copy desk. 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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