The MTA is taking a step toward expanding its fleet of open gangway subway cars — and potentially bringing the new-look rides to the numbered lines.
With funding for the 2025-2029 $68.4 billion capital improvement plan now secured in the state budget, the transit agency last week issued a request for information from companies that have experience designing and manufacturing cars linked by walk-through passageways.
Growing the number of open gangway cars would be part of the transit agency’s plan to spend $7.6 billion over the next five years to replace R62 model subway cars that have been running on the numbered lines — known as the A Division — since the mid-1980s.
“[New York City Transit] intends to purchase 1,140 R262 A-Division Subway Cars and a portion of those subway cars may be open gangway,” reads the request for information posted to the MTA website. “The intent of this request is to identify industry interest in designing and manufacturing an open gangway system.”
The proposed allotment in the next capital program for new subway cars makes up the MTA’s second-biggest chunk of planned spending on system upgrades, after the nearly $12 billion pegged for station improvements.
The need to replace cars that have been running beyond their useful 40-year life stands to significantly increase the number of open gangway models, which allow riders to walk the length of a train through soft, accordion-like or hard-shelled connectors. Such trains are common in the Paris Metro and the London Underground. Closer to home, the Toronto Transit Commission has had them for more than a decade.
But such cars have had a slower rollout in the U.S., with the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority earlier this year starting to test open gangway cars that will eventually replace MARTA’S entire fleet.
Yonah Freemark, a researcher at the Urban Institute who has written extensively about the new-car technology, said the pace of the shift by U.S. transit systems is baffling.
“Every train manufacturer that is building metros anywhere in the world knows how to build open gangway trains and we know that because they are building them everywhere except for the United States, in essence,” Freemark told THE CITY. “That includes all the stalwarts that the MTA has used in the past, whether that’s Alstom or Kawasaki or the other companies that make subway cars.”
In February 2024, the MTA became the first U.S. transit system to put such cars into passenger service when a pair of 10-car open gangway trains began running along the C line. In March, some of those cars were shifted to the G line, which now has two five-car trains in use.
So far, riders seem to be open to the new design.
“I was saying to myself, it’s like an accordion, I like it a lot better,” said Hubert Parham, 62, who was riding the G train Monday morning. “I started walking from down there on the first car and I walked all the way through.”
The 20 open gangway cars currently in passenger service were purchased as part of the MTA’s two previous five-year capital programs, with Kawasaki Railcar Manufacturing Inc. designing and engineering the R211 model.
The MTA board in December approved an order for 435 additional R211 subway cars to run on the lettered lines, including 80 more of the open gangway models.
MTA data shows that the R211 cars, including the 20 where riders can walk freely across the length of the train, encounter mechanical failures far less frequently than the average across the entire fleet of more than 6,700. In March, the systemwide Mean Distance Between Failure rate — a key metric for tracking how far subway cars travel before a breakdown — was 126,652 miles, compared with more than 220,000 for the R211 cars which began running in March 2023.
In addition to being equipped with wider doors, brighter lighting and several cameras, the newest cars in the fleet and all future models — such as the R262 — will be compatible with the modern signal system that the MTA is rolling out across more lines.
While MTA officials said the test trains have been well-received by riders, some straphangers pointed out that seating can be harder to come by in the newest cars.
“Especially when you just come off work, and you just want to sit down and get home, you could use more seats,” said Juan Ortiz, 42, who was riding Monday on an open gangway train on the G line.
Transit officials have previously touted riders’ ability to move between cars, along with the wider doors that create more capacity and also help speed boarding and cut the amount of time trains spend at stops.
As part of its analysis for potentially adding open gangway cars to the numbered lines, the MTA is asking potential manufacturers a series of questions.
Those include queries on the companies’ previous experience in designing and manufacturing such subway cars, how they would comply with fire and smoke standards and any challenges that could accompany adding open gangway designs to the numbered lines.
The R262 cars would be 51.2 feet long, according to the MTA’s request for information. Potential operating challenges include tight radius track curvatures and the need to isolate cars while remaining in service in case of broken glass, door failures or customer-related incidents.
Future open gangway cars would also have to meet New York City Transit’s “standards of durability, customer safety and vandal resistance,” the document reads.
Freemark said that there is no return to unlinked cars for global transit networks that have made the shift.
“The transit systems that have decided to go towards open gangways have essentially said this is a better model for us and have stuck to it in future procurements,” he said. “So that’s why you see the fleets of mainline metro systems virtually everywhere else in the world converting entirely to open gangways.”
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