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MTA set to install protective platform doors at select subway stations in ‘coming months’
By
Giulia Heyward
Published Jun 4, 2023
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By
Giulia Heyward
Published Jun 4, 2023
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The MTA will begin constructing protective screen doors at three subway station platforms “in the coming months,” agency spokesperson Aaron Donovan told Gothamist on Sunday.
The protective barriers are part of a pilot program meant to stop riders from falling — or being pushed — onto the train tracks. The program, which was announced last year, comes in response to several high-profile incidents, including one resulting in the death of Michelle Go, who was shoved onto the Times Square subway tracks last year.
“This board — and this entire organization — were consumed by that tragedy and remain so,” Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA construction and development, said at a meeting in March. He alluded to the platform doors as one of several programs the city is using to help prevent incidents like this in the future.
The protective platform doors are set to be installed at the Times Square 7 train, the Third Avenue L train and the Sutphin Boulevard-Archer Avenue E train stop. The Platform Screen Door Pilot Installation program is estimated to cost more than $100 million, according to one report.
The MTA declined to share a specific date for when the construction would begin. The program is coming despite previous concerns over whether this technology could actually be installed at certain older subway stations, MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said at a meeting in May.
The research “indicated that the platforms — because of their age and structural conditions — in most cases could not accommodate them,” he said at the meeting. “Nevertheless, we are piloting platform doors at a couple of stations.”
And in stations that are too old for this new technology, Lieber said the city is taking other precautions, including installing cameras at the front of trains in order “to provide the same kind of protection as platform doors.”
Only 128 of 472 stations can accommodate the platform screen doors — and would cost an estimated $7 billion to construct, according to a 2019 report commissioned by the MTA.
Correction: This story has been updated to clarify that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will be constructing the protective screen doors.
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transportation
Giulia Heyward
Giulia Heyward is a breaking news reporter on the Day-Of desk. She previously worked at NPR, as a breaking news reporter, and the New York Times, as a reporting fellow on the national desk. Her work has also appeared in CNN, The Atlantic and Politico. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or more securely on signal at 917-715-1458.
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