State lawmakers want subway officials to install fixed platform barriers or invest in high-tech gates at all 472 subway stations after a recent, high-profile attack where a man in Chelsea was shoved in front of an oncoming train.
West side Assemblyman Tony Simone plans to introduce a bill in the coming days that would require the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to install platform barriers at every station over five years. The MTA so far has installed waist-high steel fences at 14 stations to give riders greater protection from being shoved or accidentally falling into subway tracks, and at three stations has pledged to pilot modern platform doors — a type of gate along the edge of a subway platform that only opens when a train has entered a station.
But the authority must act with more urgency if it wants to encourage travelers to transition from their cars to mass transit with the launch of congestion pricing tolls, Simone said.
“We should’ve had barriers already up, like at advanced stations around the world,” said Simone, who oversees the district where 45-year-old Joseph Lynskey was pushed into the path of a 1 train on New Year’s Eve, suffering a fractured skull, broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. “The worst thing that could happen is folks don’t trust the subway system because of safety, and don’t get out of their cars and use the subway.”
Simone described the roughly four-foot-high metal gates as “a half measure” and wants the MTA to also invest in platform screen doors and rope systems deployed in modern metro networks in parts of Europe and Asia — at stations where it is logistically feasible to do so.
The Assemblyman concedes he doesn’t know how much it would cost but knows it would be costly, several hundreds of millions of dollars to well into the billions depending on the structures. Simone pointed to future revenue generated by congestion pricing as a possible funding mechanism, along with prioritizing new safety infrastructure as part of the state Legislature’s negotiations to finance the MTA’s 2025-2029 capital plan.
“I understand that this is expensive and that every platform is different, but I think in a modern city like New York City, we can figure it out,” said Simone.
Transit officials and elected leaders are generally supportive of the concept. MTA board chair and chief executive Janno Lieber said this week that Gov. Kathy Hochul directed his agency in recent days to speed up its rollout of the fixed platform fences, which transit officials are currenting installing at a rate of one to two stations per month.
“We’re going to continue building them, and we’re going to build them faster,” said Lieber. “Assemblyman Simone is on to something, and that’s an investment we got to make.”
Mayor Eric Adams described the platform barriers as “long overdue” at a Tuesday press briefing, and would not rule out possibly kicking in city dollars to support installation efforts.
East side Assemblyman Alex Bores, who campaigned on the platform safety issue in 2022, said at the minimum the MTA should accelerate its efforts to install fixed-fences at every station where more robust, automated platform doors are not feasible. Some stations are too narrow or cannot bear the extra weight such infrastructure would add, according to the MTA.
“The whole point is that these fixed barriers are cheap to build, and any delay is just putting more New Yorkers at risk,” said Bores. “So, let’s implement a known solution that we can do right now, that is relatively cheap, and if there’s a better solution in the future, we can evolve.”
