The NYC MTA has been announcing some adjustments and tweaks coming to the subway’s turnstiles, including installing wheelchair accessible wide-aisle turnstiles, but when it comes to updating the subway system they’re not stopping there.
A report released by the MTA a few months back showed that fare evasion has officially reached crisis levels, with the MTA losing an estimated $690 million in unpaid fares and tolls in 2022. This threatens the economics of mass transit, and they’re not letting this one slide.
More than $45 million of the overall unpaid fares comes from “back-cocking” as reported by the NY Post, in which straphangers pull the arm of the turnstile halfway towards them and then slip through when pushing it forward.
“We’ve all seen it–someone pulls back on the bar just far enough to step over it when reversing to go in a forward direction,” said Demetrius Crichlow, MTA official in charge of the daily operations of the subway system, at a board meeting this past Monday, July 17.
The MTA is hopeful however that new tweaks, such as installing plastic sleeves on the turnstile bars and metal fins on the sides of the fare gate stalls as well as redesigning the turnstiles so that they only make a half rotation when pulled towards the rider, can help prevent people from slipping through without paying.
So far 26 turnstiles have been altered, and the MTA is aiming to modify another 240 by the end of September.
According to the NY Post, it will cost roughly $2 million and take two years to update the remaining 3,500 turnstiles throughout the city’s 472 stations.
The news comes shortly after the MTA revealed prototypes of completely redesigned turnstiles created in hopes to curb fare evasion.
Rather than a rolling turnstile entrance, the prototypes feature a pair of glass doors that slide open once a straphanger pays the fare.
During the meeting, surveillance footage from the Bowling Green subway station showed potential fare evaders trying and failing to back-cock on the updated turnstile.
“As you can see, it definitely works. It doesn’t stop them from seeking other means of fare-evading, but it definitely does stop the back-cocking,” said Crichlow.