By Gus Saltonstall
An Upper West Side train station will soon get new subway gates aimed at reducing fare evasion.
On Wednesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the expansion of a subway gate pilot program that recently produced a fare evasion decline by an average of 35 percent at the 20 stations where the new gates were installed.
The MTA is expanding the pilot program to 20 more stations, including the West 72nd Street and Broadway 1, 2, and 3 station. Work is expected to begin on installing the gates this month, and the gates are expected to be fully installed at the Upper West Side station by the end of 2026.
The new gates remove the turnstile element of entering a train station. After you tap your OMNY Card or payment method, the gates swing open, and you walk through.
“The data is clear: these new fare gates have created a better riding experience for customers and made it harder for would-be fare evaders to enter the system without paying,” Hochul said in a news release. “Now, we’re ramping up our plan to install these world-class fare gates across the subway system so even more riders can benefit.”
The West 72nd Street and Broadway station will be the first on the Upper West Side to have the fare gates installed.
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How are these leading to less fare evasion? Whenever I use these, there are always people waiting to go through directly behind someone. I never see this with turnstiles.
I appreciate that they are trying to hard to deal with this, as it has been ignored for too long. It is very frustrating to see countless people avoid fares with no penalties.
That being said, I’m not sure this is the answer. I assume that purchasing, installing and maintaining these is not cheap. The first time one or more break, it will cause a huge problem.
I would periodically station someone there who has the authority to do something – many stations have people there to help who are doing nothing at all and completely ignore people hopping turnstiles or going through doors. Also set up cameras facing the turnstiles to put the fear in people that they are being seen. Seems easy.