Nearly every subway turnstile in New York City will soon be fitted with metal shark-like fins and plastic paddles designed to make it harder to skip the fare, MTA officials announced during a meeting on Monday.
The equipment’s already been installed at 327 of the city’s 472 subway stations — and will be added to another 129 by the end of next month, according to documents published by the transit agency. The MTA plans to spend $7.3 million on the new features, a relatively small sum compared to the $1.1 billion it’s budgeted to install entirely redesigned sets of fare gates at 150 stations through its five-year construction plan.
Transit officials reported that the low-cost barriers have reduced fare evasion by 60% at the stations where they’ve been installed.
“ Some members of the public might think these interventions just look funny, but the truth, the truth of the matter is these modifications work,” NYC Transit President Demetrius Chrichlow said.
The MTA has, for years, raised alarms about people skipping the fare. The agency estimated it will lose $400 million to subway fare evasion this year, up from $285 million in 2022.
The metal fins are 3 feet high and have spikes on top aimed at preventing people from using the sides of fare gates as leverage to hop over the turnstile. And the paddles fit over the turnstiles themselves, which can trip up people who are leaping over.
Two years ago, the MTA also began retooling subway turnstiles to prevent “back-cocking,” a maneuver where people slightly pull back the turnstile arm so they can squeeze through fare-free.
MTA board member David Jones questioned the safety of the new attachments, particularly for younger people who may seek to hop the turnstiles no matter what barriers are in place. Crichlow said he couldn’t comment on how many people get injured hopping turnstiles.
“You can do some really stupid things,” said Jones, 77, recounting his teenage years.
The MTA board's approval of the $7.3 million contract for the equipment was merely a formality. Transit officials said they’d inked the deal and begun work months ago under an “immediate operating need.”
Louis Montanti, a procurement manager at the MTA, also described it as an “emergency order,” which drew criticism from board members who are supposed to have oversight of the MTA’s contracts.
“ Our roles as a board is to approve procurements,” board member Midori Valdivia, said. “There are very few transit agency boards that don't approve procurements…and so whenever we're using that [emergency orders], I just want to be judicious about that.”
MTA spokesperson Tim Minton said agency officials declared "fare evasion was at a level considered to be an immediate operating need to deal with" on May 15.
A day later, the officials sought to purchase the fare gate attachments without board approval, because the equipment had already been tested as part of a pilot program.
The MTA’s most recent public stats show 11% of subway riders evaded the fare from July through the end of September this year, compared to 13% over the same period last year.
Later this month, the agency plans to roll out four new turnstile designs at 20 stations as part of a pilot program.
This story was updated with a comment from an MTA spokesperson.
