Commuters at the 23rd Street-Baruch College 6 train station saw something new Wednesday morning.
The third and final model of modern fare gates — part of an MTA pilot program testing them at 20 stations in the system, at no cost to the MTA.
What You Need To Know
The MTA is piloting fare gates from three companies in 20 stations to see which work best before they roll out to 150 stations
Social media videos have shown people evading the fare with the other two models installed in December, manipulating the sensors or climbing over or crawling under
The new model is from STraffic, which recently completed the installation of this model in 50 BART stations in the San Francisco area
This model is from the Korean company STraffic, which recently completed the installation of the same gates at 50 BART stations in the San Francisco area.
In New York City, they follow the installation of two models that were put in stations in December from Conduent and Cubic — the company behind the OMNY system.
But the question is: will these new ones stop fare evaders?
“I guess we’ll see how it pans out,” commuter Mike Hicks said. “I think they are for now, but I think people will find a way.”
“No, but hopefully it does,” commuter Olivia McDonald said.
On social media, people have been demonstrating how they evade the gates installed in December, tricking the sensors.
NY1 asked the MTA whether in the short time the others have been installed at several other stations if there’s been a drop in fare evasion, but officials did not respond.
There have also been videos of people getting stuck between doors or getting hit by them, as well as instances when too many people entering and exiting at the same time caused chaos late last month at the Broadway-Lafayette station.
So, some riders are skeptical.
“I mean, we’ll see during peak hours. It’s not super busy right now,” commuter Katie Lally said. “So when people are trying to go out and coming in, I’m sure there’ll be some. Bottlenecking.”
The only issue with this new model seems to be that they stay open way too long, but NY1 overheard people from the company who were observing them say they plan to adjust the timing.
According to the MTA, the next station to get this model is 168th Street on the A and C lines.
In a statement, MTA spokesperson Eugene Resnick told NY1: “As we evaluate their performance, we’re learning more every day about how to design modern, effective fare gates for New York City.”