{"id":348256,"date":"2026-09-16T12:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T12:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/348256\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T12:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T12:10:08","slug":"editorial-nyc-subways-need-real-platform-barriers-to-keep-riders-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/348256\/","title":{"rendered":"Editorial | NYC subways need real platform barriers to keep riders safe"},"content":{"rendered":"

How many more people in New York City need to fall onto the subway tracks and be struck and killed by oncoming trains before the MTA<\/a> finally gets around to installing real platform barriers?\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are 472 subway stations in the City of New York, and to be sure, installing ceiling-to-floor platform barriers at every one of them would cost a great deal of money and take a great deal of time. The MTA is already spending $7.1 billion over the next 30 years to make its subway stations meet all ADA-required standards for accessibility; the authority will only get to full compliance at 95% of its stops by 2055.<\/p>\n

While that important work must continue, the MTA needs to simultaneously find a way to work on enclosing platforms and preventing any unauthorized individuals from breaching the tracks for any reason.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The latest deaths on the tracks happened Sunday in Lower Manhattan<\/a>, when two people \u2014 an apparently suicidal person and a friend attempting to save their life \u2014 were struck and killed by an oncoming 4 train at the Spring Street station. It was a horrific tragedy on every level, and it could have been easily prevented if the platform were enclosed with a barrier that made jumping or falling onto the tracks impossible.<\/p>\n

Beyond increasing passenger safety, the barriers can also bring other benefits for the MTA. It would reduce the amount of debris thrown onto the tracks, thus eliminating the risk of track fires that cause costly delays. The MTA would also have the ability to make the stations climate-controlled, providing heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer.<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s one big question with such a project: Who pays for it?\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Admittedly, that\u2019s a tough one to answer in an age when the MTA has five-year capital plans to fulfill and keep the existing service in good order \u2014\u00a0and collective bargaining agreements with workers coming due \u2014 and the never-ending challenge of securing more revenue from Albany and an often-hostile federal government.<\/p>\n

But the MTA has revenue from congestion pricing in Manhattan that it is using to leverage important infrastructure projects. It has also secured, in previous years, payroll taxes and other fees to keep the coffers filled. And it sells tons of advertising campaigns everywhere it can \u2014\u00a0from digital boards to wraps on subway cars, and every other space in between.<\/p>\n

Surely, the MTA can find a little money from all of these different revenue streams in order to launch a concerted effort to enclose subway platforms. No one expects the platforms at all 472 stations to be enclosed overnight; indeed, it may take decades to complete such a task.<\/p>\n

But neither the timeframe nor the cost should stop the MTA from developing a plan to get started. If just one, five, or 10 stations a year were platformed starting next, and lives were saved as a result, it would have been worth the effort.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start enclosing the subway platforms, and let\u2019s save lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How many more people in New York City need to fall onto the subway tracks and be struck…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[130237,130238,748,2533,141,9,28687,56,63,65,64,25817,37132,23948,80427,130239,23526,49157,130240,44185],"class_list":["post-348256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-ada-compliance","tag-commuter-safety","tag-congestion-pricing","tag-metropolitan-transportation-authority","tag-mta","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city-subway","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-nyc-subway-stations","tag-platform-barriers","tag-public-transportation","tag-subway-accessibility","tag-subway-deaths","tag-subway-safety","tag-subway-tracks","tag-track-intrusions","tag-transit-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}