After years of pressure and sometimes-heavy resistance, the MTA says a trial program involving platform doors at three subway stations to keep people off the tracks is underway.
The idea is hardly new; such doors are commonplace in cities like London, and they came up for consideration in New York in 2012 and again in 2016, both times amid a surge in deaths on the tracks. The doors are aimed at keeping people from falling or being pushed onto the subway tracks.
But it took on renewed urgency in Jan. 2022 after Michelle Go was pushed in front of a train at the Times Square station and killed, a case that provoked national outrage about violence against the Asian community, safety in the transit system and the handling of the mentally ill.
There will be three stations that will get the barrier doors in a trial program confirmed by the MTA: Times Square (7 line), 14th Street and Third Avenue (L line) in Manhattan, and the Sutphin Boulevard-Archer Avenue station (E line) in Queens.
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MTA Chair Janno Lieber previously told News 4 that the platform doors project will cost more than $100 million and will likely be years to develop and deploy. The pilot project is moving through the procurement process, the transit agency said.
The MTA already installed a pilot barrier design at 57-7th Avenue station in the center of the platform to provide protection against a rider being pushed from behind. But the new subway doors will span the length of the platform.
No timeline has been provided for when the new safety measures could be in place at the three stations. Officials said they have to look into who will construct the doors.
