MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber on Tuesday responded to social media videos of straphangers either getting their limbs or belongings stuck in prototype fare gates the agency is testing at several subway stations.
Lieber, during a Jan. 6 Pix11 interview, addressed clips of subway riders getting ensnared in the new gates — most notably a 5-year-old girl who wound up in the hospital after her head got caught in one of them. The specific incident took place at one of the gates that the MTA is testing at the Broadway-Lafayette Street Station in Manhattan, designed by the company Conduent, late last year.
Similar incidents include one within the same station where a woman got her neck caught in the machine, while allegedly trying to beat the fare, and another where a different woman’s bags were trapped as well.
Lieber insisted that most of the videos showing incidents where individuals became stuck were the result of attempting to beat the fare.
“Most of the videos that you’ve seen are people trying to fare evade, people trying to rush in after somebody,” he said during the Jan. 6 interview. “And the gates are designed to close to prevent that from happening.”
In response to the five-year-old girl getting caught, Lieber cautioned that parents need to know how to move safely through the gates with their child.
“You gotta have the child in front of you or close by you,” Lieber said. “The system is designed to recognize a child or a small person. What it’s not designed to do is if the child wanders five feet behind you, then the doors close, and that’s not great.”
Lieber: Some hiccups expected with new fare gates
Lieber responded that the gates are in the testing phase and some hiccups are expected.
“The reason they’re being installed is to pilot them, to test them, and to figure out how to make them optimally work for New York,” Lieber said.
The prototypes, designed by Conduent and two other firms, are currently being piloted at eight stations and will be rolled out to a total of 20 in the coming weeks, Lieber said. They are designed to prevent fare evasion, a scourge the MTA says costs it roughly $1 billion each year.
They are also designed to facilitate passage for individuals with disabilities and those using strollers.
The gates being tested feature saloon-style glass doors that fling open when riders pay their fare and then shut soon after they walk through. The entrances are equipped with AI censors that are supposed to detect and sound a loud, blaring alarm when someone tries to evade paying.
Despite those features, amNewYork observed crafty New Yorkers still managing to avoid paying fares on the new machines by going underneath the doors or doubling up when passing through them late last year.
The MTA is testing a prototype from another company, named Cubic, at the Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center station in Brooklyn. Those gates are quieter and equipped with cameras as well as the AI censors to detect those in wheelchairs, with strollers or trying to dodge the fare, NY1 reported.
The MTA allocated $1.1 billion to install new fare gates at 150 stations, encompassing a third of the subway stops, by 2029 in its latest capital plan.
