Again. On Monday Aug. 6, two tourists from Mexico were shoved onto subway tracks by an emotionally disturbed woman. Fortunately, there was no train coming and the women, aided by other straphangers, got back onto the platform with only minor injuries. But this is a story all too familiar to New Yorkers who can recall other shoving incidents with more tragic outcomes, most vividly New Yorker Michelle Go who was pushed to her death in 2022 in Times Square.
Pushing incidents are rare, occurring, on average, only once in every 43 million rides. But in addition to being every New Yorker's nightmare, random incidents of people being pushed onto the tracks have a huge impact on the perception of safety in the subway. In response, the MTA and the city have deployed more police and mental health professionals, including the innovative SCOUT program which conducts outreach to severely mentally ill individuals to move them out of the subways, voluntarily or involuntarily. Subway crime is down 11 percent this year from pre-pandemic levels, thanks, some say, to the increased presence of NYPD officers.
But again, the perception of safety has not recovered, in part due to high profile incidents like subway pushings. In MTA’s most recent customer survey, only 44 percent of riders stated they felt safe in stations. Safety was among the top issues that riders said would improve their satisfaction and make them use the subway more.
There is something simple that the MTA can do to make us feel and be safer. As someone who has been riding the subway for more than three-quarters of a century, I can recall when the subways had metal fencing at a few critical stations with gaps by train doors to keep crowds from spilling over onto the tracks. You could see them at the Times Square Shuttle and at South Ferry, though they're gone now.
My colleague, Kaylee Moon, and I reviewed treatment in other cities to reduce track intrusions. The gold standard is floor-to-ceiling Platform Screen Doors — which are similar to elevators. There are variations including Platform Edge Doors that don’t reach the ceiling, platform gates and vertical screen doors or cables. In just about every new train line built in the past 20 years, these installations have become standard.
But in a very old system like the New York City subway, there are geometric, airflow, and structural concerns that make Platform Screen Doors and similar treatments impractical and, in some cases, unsafe. The costs can also be prohibitive.
According to the 3,920-page study produced by the MTA in 2020, only 41 of 472 stations can currently accommodate Platform Screen Doors. In the long term, Platform Screen Doors might be feasible at up to 128 stations with rail car replacements over the next decade, which would align door spacings. But at the rest of the stations, Platform Screen Doors would lead to insufficient spacing for people with disabilities (43 percent of infeasible stations), undermine the structural integrity of elevated platforms (28 percent), or would serve trains that have doors opening at different locations, even with new rail cars (9 percent).
Previous generations of transit leaders have looked at this issue and concluded the same, including when former New York City Transit chief and Andy "Train Daddy" Byford postponed a platform door trial because of costs in 2018; instead he proposed using the money to improve accessibility for wheelchair users.
The 2020 study found that automatic gates including Platform Screen Doors at the128 feasible stations would cost between $13 and $14 billion or about $100 million per station. On top of that, about $120 million would be needed each year just for maintenance.
However, putting up fixed metal fencing barriers, with gaps for subway car doors, could be accomplished at hundreds of stations. In fact, this technique has been used in systems around the world for decades.
The MTA has chosen this route as a test. Ten stations already have fencing barriers installed and the MTA is planning to continue the rollout. So far, the work has been done in-house saving a ton of money on pricey consultants to design the Platform Screen Doors, the astronomical installation costs and engineers to inspect and approve the work. The “pause” on congestion pricing has already cost the MTA big money and threatens their capital program.
The choice to me is pretty clear: Provide some protection at hundreds of stations for less than the price of installing screen doors at one station, or investing billions for just a handful of stations and curtail programs like improving accessibility and signal modernization.
MTA, we are counting on you to make the right choice.
And speaking of congestion pricing:
