Subway Platform Barriers Will Be Tested at 3 N.Y.C. Stations (February 2022)
www.nytimes.com

...The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which had resisted calls to add platform barriers, will begin a pilot program amid outcry over safety in the transit system.

For years, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority had resisted calls to install the platform barriers that are used in subway systems around the globe to block access to tracks, citing the "special complexities" of bringing such technology to a more than century-old system not designed for it.

But on Wednesday, more than a month after a woman was shoved to her death in front of a train at the Times Square subway station, transit officials reversed course and said they would move to test such barriers.

While the pilot program will be limited to three stations, it does include some platforms at the Times Square station, one of the system's busiest stops, and officials say it could lay the foundation for an eventual expansion elsewhere.

More than one-fourth of the system's stations have layouts that could eventually accommodate platform barriers, according to an analysis commissioned by the M.T.A., which operates the subway....