MTA eyeing emergency exit gates in effort to squash NYC subway fare evasion
The MTA’s faregate experiment at the Sutphin Blvd.-Archer Ave.-JFK subway station is showing results — a 20% reduction in fare evasion, say MTA officials, who attribute the improvement mainly to the removal of an emergency gate through which fare evaders often entered the Queens train stop.
The new gates, installed in December, replaced one bank of turnstiles at the station with motorized, plexiglass gates that move out of the way after a fare is paid.
The system, manufactured by MetroCard contractor Cubic, cost the MTA $700,000.
“Those particular models have come in for some criticism, not unjustifiably,” MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said Wednesday.
Lieber was referring to videos circulating on social media showing some straphangers reaching around the new faregate at the downtown Jamaica station to trip an exit sensor, which opens the gates and lets them enter for free.
“Changes are being made,” Lieber said.
But the MTA boss said even with that free-ride flaw, fare evasion at the station went down — because the new system allowed the agency to remove one of the station’s emergency gates.
“Revenue is up 20% just from not having the gate open as frequently,” he said.
The agency is taking the stat as proof that securing the gates — which Lieber has taken to calling “superhighways” of fare evasion — will begin to stanch the MTA’s $700 million-a-year nonpayment problem.
To that end, the agency plans on placing 15-second delays on the emergency exits at three subway stations in the coming weeks.
The time-delay gates will be installed at Bushwick’s Flushing Ave. station on the J and M lines, Mott Haven’s Third Ave.-138th St. station on the No. 6 train, and the E. 59th St. station serving the Nos. 4, 5 and 6 trains on the Upper East Side.
The time-delay system would keep the gate from unlocking for 15 seconds after a passenger pushed the exit bar, in an effort to discourage the gate’s use as an ordinary, nonemergency exit.
Lieber balked at suggestions Wednesday that the 15-second delay could cause safety issues.
“We’ve gotten approval from the code authorities [and] the fire experts on how to do that, and we’re going to do it,” he said.
“We’re not letting New Yorkers walk up to the turnstile and pay their fare, and look over at somebody who has their MetroCard in their hand or OMNY open on their phone [instead] go for the gate because it’s open,” Lieber added.
An MTA spokesman said that the delayed gates would have signs identifying them as such, and added there are currently no plans to bring the delay to any of the subway system’s 150 wheelchair-accessible stations.
Meanwhile, the agency continues to weigh its options for a wholesale replacement of the turnstile system.
Eight months after holding a showcase of modern faregates at Grand Central Terminal last spring, the agency has finally begun vetting companies as potential vendors to deliver such a system to New York.
Officials said they hope to have that list finalized in a few weeks before starting to solicit formal proposals.
But a farewell to the turnstile — and with it, officials hope, a significant chunk of the fare evasion problem — is likely a long way off.
“We’re going to keep experimenting with new types of fare gates, in part so that we are smarter as we select and design something for the MTA system in a bigger way,” Lieber said Wednesday.
The total amount of money lost to fare evasion in 2023 is not yet available, an MTA spokesman told the Daily News.
In 2022, the MTA lost $690 million lost across the transit system to nonpayment. Of that, $285 million was lost to fare-beating on the subway.
Fare evasion is an even bigger problem on MTA buses, where the agency lost $315 million in 2022.
Officials said Wednesday that buses continue to lead subways in both the percentage of riders who don’t pay and the total dollar amount lost, despite a recent enforcement push on local bus routes.
The MTA’s most recent data estimates that more than 46% of bus riders don’t pay.
