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MTA to begin replacing NYC's subway turnstiles with modern fare gates
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
Published Apr 28, 2025
Modified Apr 29, 2025
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Courtesy Scheidt & Bachmann
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
Published Apr 28, 2025
Modified Apr 29, 2025
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The MTA plans to replace subway turnstiles with modern gates at 20 subway stations later this year, part of a push to crack down on fare evasion that officials say costs the agency more than $700 million every year.
Transit officials during a committee meeting on Monday laid out a plan to test out new fare gate designs from four different companies at the select group of stations. Each design replaces the subway’s horizontal turnstiles, which are relatively easy to jump over, with glass sliding doors officials said are “very difficult” to force open.
For decades, MTA leaders have complained about fare evaders hammering the agency’s bottom line — but until the last few years never moved to fundamentally redesign the subway’s turnstiles. Transit officials said they plan to begin installing the new gates this fall, and will test them out as a pilot program before deciding on a design to roll out throughout the system.
“These gates are the cutting edge and are aimed at both ensuring fare compliance and making the system more accessible and easier to use,” MTA construction chief Jamie Torres-Springer said. “While it may look familiar to some, it involves major technology upgrades in all cases.”
The MTA piloted another set of new fare gates at some stations in 2023, but they were widely panned because they remained open long enough for lines of riders to sneak through without paying. Since then, the transit agency has added metal spikes on the sides of some turnstile entryways to prevent riders from beating the fare.
MTA officials earmarked $1.1 billion to overhaul subway fare gates at 150 stations through the agency’s proposed five-year capital plan, which still requires funding and approval from state lawmakers. The MTA can’t move forward with the plan until leaders in Albany sign off on the plan through the state budget, which is nearly a month overdue.
MTA officials said nearly 10% of subway riders evaded the fare during the first three months of 2025, down from an estimated 13% during the third quarter of 2024. The agency has credited the drop to its hiring of private security guards near emergency exit gates, which MTA Chair Janno Lieber has called “the super highway of fare evasion.”
MTA officials said Monday that fare evasion decreased by 36% at emergency gates where guards were stationed.
At 70 stations, the MTA has installed technology that forces riders to wait 15 seconds for emergency gates to open, which officials said aims to encourage people to exit through the regular turnstiles.
The MTA also limited “back-cocking” at 90% of the system’s turnstiles, a common hack where a fare evader would pull back the turnstile to get through the gate. The agency plans to fix back-cocking at every subway turnstile by the summer.
Torres-Springer said riders should look out for the modern fare gates later this year at stations like Atlantic Ave-Barclays Center, 14th Street-Union Square and Forest Hills-71 Avenue. He said they’ll be installed at 40 total stations by the end of 2026.
Tagged
new york city
public safety
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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