These UES Subway Stops Could Have Platform Barriers, MTA Says

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — As pressure mounts on the MTA to install doors on subway platforms to present track-related accidents, a study just released by the agency says that only about half of the Upper East Side's stations could accommodate the barriers.

The MTA shared the enormous, nearly 4,000-page study on Wednesday, more than a week after the Jan. 15 shoving attack at Times Square that killed 40-year-old Michelle Go.

Prepared in 2019, the study examined every single one of New York's 472 subway stations. It found that only about a quarter could accommodate the sliding doors, due to constraints like disability access and columns that stand too close to the platform edge.

Critics are skeptical of that finding, noting that cities around the world have platform doors in their subway systems, and arguing that the MTA often exaggerates the difficulty of projects it does not want to undertake.

Patch combed through the study to pick out the findings for each Upper East Side subway station. According to the MTA, just seven neighborhood stations have a platform that could accommodate barriers, while five could not. (We counted stations on 59th Street as part of the Upper East Side.)

Here's the breakdown:

Could accommodate platform doors:

• 96th Street: Q train
• 86th Street: Q train
• 72nd Street: Q train
• Lexington Avenue-63rd Street: Q, F trains
• Roosevelt Island: F train
• Lexington Avenue-59th Street: 6 train
• 5th Avenue-59th Street: N/W trains

Could not accommodate platform doors:

• 96th street: 6 train
• 86th Street: 4/5/6 trains
• 77th Street: 6 train
• 68th Street-Hunter College: 6 train
• Lexington Avenue-59th Street: 4/5 trains

Even if the barriers were implemented, the price tags would be staggering: standard platform screen doors, like those in place at the JFK Airport AirTrain, would cost upwards of $35 million apiece at Upper East Side stations, while shorter, chest-high gates would cost at least $27 million each, the MTA claims.

The study was released amid a brewing battle between the MTA and local politicians over the issue. On Thursday, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine gathered in Times Square with several City Council members to demand that the MTA install barriers — only for the MTA's CEO to throw water on the idea hours later.

From Paris to Tokyo, São Paolo to Barcelona, other cities around the world have installed platform screen doors in their subways to protect riders.

Standing today in Times Sq with my colleagues to say it’s time for the MTA to start catching up. pic.twitter.com/xhYZBks3OE
— Mark D. Levine (@MarkLevineNYC) January 27, 2022

"I ask the politicians not to try to make hay out of this issue, but to work with the MTA for real solutions based on engineering reality," CEO Janno Lieber said in an interview on WNYC.

In a letter to Lieber earlier this week, Levine and other officials called for the MTA to test platform doors at Manhattan subway stations before a wider rollout. They acknowledged challenges to building platform doors, but argued those aren't "insurmountable."

"In particular, the MTA's Enhanced Station Initiative, which sunk around $936 million into mostly cosmetic station improvements, has proven the agency can find needs funds for initiatives when they are deemed a priority," the letter states. "Platform screen doors must be given the priority they deserved, studied, and funded for installation."

Lieber said he'd be open to exploring a platform pilot program for stations where officials deemed them "possible."

But he also called himself "disappointed" in Levine, the City Council's former health committee chair. Mentally ill people in the subway system are a potential safety issue too, he said.

"What was going on when they spend billions of dollars on mental health that left us with the conditions we're seeing in the system," he said.

Related coverage:

• Pols Say Platform Doors Answer To Subway Crisis; MTA Adds Cops
• MTA Honcho Downplays Subway Platform Doors Amid Safety Outcry
  
• Accused Times Square Subway Shover Held Without Bai