Mayor Eric Adams Discusses New Subway Barriers

By Yehudit Garmaise

Three days after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) installed barriers at the edges of the platforms at the 191th Street Station in Manhattan as we reported here, Mayor Eric Adams was asked at City Hall on Tuesday morning whether the NYC Transit’s latest efforts to provide more public safety “will help prevent slips, falls, and people getting pushed onto the tracks.”

The mayor, who explained that he is “a big fan” of pilot, or experimental, projects that can determine whether ideas can be implemented citywide,” called the new platform barriers, “a first step.”

“Eventually, the subway barriers are going to evolve into glass partitions, like those we see at JFK, when you get on the AirTrain, and I see in the subway stations of many other countries as well,” the mayor said.

As for how successful the new platform barriers will work to prevent passengers from falling or getting shoved, G-d forbid, onto the tracks, the mayor took a Wait-and-See attitude.

“Let’s see how these first four platform barriers work and how successful they are,” the mayor said.

After installing three more platform barriers at the subway stations at West 8 St-NY Aquarium Station, Clark Street Station, and one more that has yet to be determined, NYC Transit will determine whether the barriers work so well that they could be used at subway stations citywide.

“We try things until we get them right, and then, if they work, we will expand them,” said the mayor who praised the MTA for “hearing the calls from so many that we had to figure out a new way to really secure the platforms and separate them from passengers.”

As far as preventing passengers from getting shoved in the first place, Adams said that he, Anne Williams-Isom, the deputy mayor for Health and Human Service, and outreach workers are “doing their part to care for and deal with the New Yorkers who suffer from severe mental distress.”