MTA Continues to Seek Redesign Ideas for New Wide-Gate Subway Doors to Fight Fare Evasion

By Yehudit Garmaise

The MTA continues to seek redesign ideas for the subway turnstiles that MTA CEO Janno Lieber says mostly serve “to cultivate a generation of world-class gymnasts.” 

“You can just put your hands on the side and vault over them,” Lieber told 1010 WINS while bemoaning the widespread fare evasion that continued to grow since the pandemic, costing the transit agency $700 million in 2022. “We’ve gotta deal with that, whether it’s raising the height or changing the design so it’s not so easy for people to vault.”

On December 4, the MTA installed the first version of the new wide-aisle fare gates at the Sutphin Boulevard-Archer Avenue-JFK Airport subway station in Queens. 

Although the MTA is likely years away from approving a final redesign, the city’s first new higher fare-gates seek to combat fare evasion while also improving accessibility for riders with wheelchairs, strollers, and luggage.

In a bid to collect many innovative ideas for “secure, accessible, and modern wide-aisle fare gates” for the city’s subway stations, on Tuesday, the MTA sent out Requests for Information (RFI) to many design firms based around the world. 

The winning design will “meet the MTA's goals to ensure fare payment, enhance accessibility, and improve customers’ experiences.”

While gathering RFIs and considering many new designs to combat fare evasion, for now, the MTA has significantly increased the presence of police who issue summons to turnstile jumpers.

Design firms that are interested in scoring what will be a lucrative contract with the MTA must present plans for both wide-aisle gates that are accessible for wheelchair users, people with strollers, or anyone else needing extra room, as well as providing designs for standard turnstiles that hard to jump over, while simultaneously remaining accessible for subway riders with disabilities.

At Grand Central Terminal in May, the MTA showcased the first new concepts of top international design firms that submitted designs for “the turnstiles of the future,” reported amny.com. Interestingly, the design firms, which are based in the U.S., France, and Germany, all featured a fare gate that opens middle-out and proved more difficult, but many say not impossible, to vault over than the subways’ current turnstiles.