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Subway station safety in question after collapse

By Marlene Naanes, amNewYork Staff Writer
More stories | MNaanes@am-ny.com

February 11, 2008

After a subway platform edge in Brooklyn splintered beneath a 14-year-old boy's feet, sending him onto the Q train tracks several feet below, the teen's family Sunday called for transit officials to take quick action in making emergency station repairs throughout the system.

"I saw the train coming," said Avi Katz of Borough Park. "I ran to the platform. After a couple tries, I pulled myself up."

The boy narrowly escaped being struck in the Jan. 28 incident at the Kings Highway train station, said his mother, Rena Katz, especially since he was alone and the platform light above him was out. Almost two weeks later, Avi remains too scared to ride the subway again, and the station's 8-inch-wide wooden platform edge remains rotting and disintegrating, said Assemb. Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn).

Transit workers nailed a wooden plank over the spot where Avi fell, causing a tripping hazard, Hikind said. The light above is still out, Hikind said, and the teen's yarmulke, which fell off his head in the ordeal, remains on the track.

"This time we were lucky but next time we may not be so lucky," Hikind said.

A transit spokesman said the station is considered safe and is already slated to be rehabbed. It's unclear what's in store for the wooden edge, called a rubbing board.

Also unclear is how many stations have wooden rubbing boards. Officials constantly warn riders not to stand on the rubbing board or the edge of any platform, New York City Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges said in an e-mail.

"That said, the station platform should not have failed as it appears to have done so in this particular incident," he added.