As the MTA tests out new fare gate designs at a handful of subway stations across the city, New Yorkers are already plotting new ways to sneak through without paying.
The first of the new designs landed at the Broadway-Lafayette station on Friday, featuring high glass doors that quickly slide open when a rider pays their fare and slam shut when they pass through.
The gates resemble those in place at automated passport checkpoints at airports, with shiny metallic finishing, green and red lights and sleek glass doors that open and close horizontally.
It’s one of three new designs the MTA plans to test out this year before they overhaul the turnstiles at 150 stations as part of a $1.1 billion project.
The initiative marks the first time in modern history that the MTA has fundamentally reimagined the design of the city’s subway turnstiles. Transit officials said the work is essential to the MTA’s financial future: they estimate subway fare beaters will cost the agency $400 million this year.
But on Monday morning, commuters at Broadway-Lafayette were already mulling how to get past the new glass gates without paying. Fare evasion, they said, finds a way in New York.
“If I was like a really slender, athletic teenager, I’d take a running jump on the angled part, go up and hop over,” said Ann Mellow, a 69-year-old Brooklyn resident commuting to SoHo for some last-minute Christmas shopping. “It’s sort of like parkour.”
The new gates at the station were designed and installed by Conduent, a company that’s also installed fare payment technology in France and Italy.
“I just love the fanciness of it and it reminds me of Europe because I travel to Europe a lot,” commuter Sam Bilton said. “I think this is really pretty.”
MTA construction chief Jamie Torres-Springer said last week that designs from other contractors would be rolled out at other stations in the next “24 hours,” including at 42nd St.-Port Authority.
But three days later, the new fare gates at the Port Authority subway station were still hidden behind a construction fence, closed off from public use.
MTA construction chief Jamie Torres-Springer promised to open this fare gate within "24 hours" on Friday. But by Monday morning, it was still hidden from the public.
MTA spokesperson David Steckel offered no explanation as to why the new gates at Port Authority weren’t open to the public on Monday, as Torres-Springer had promised.
Those gates — designed by Cubic, the company that created the OMNY and MetroCard systems — similarly employ glass doors, but also feature a digital screen on each pillar bearing the name of the station.
Eager riders still peered at the new designs through a plexiglass window in the fence, mulling how one could get around the new fare gate.
“ I don't know how the door's bend, probably. Or can you just kind of slightly open them to squeeze through?” said 30-year-old Robert Giles. “ I know they're a lot higher, so you can't hop them obviously.”
Back at Broadway-Lafayette, many speculated the easiest — and most realistic — method to beat the fare was by sliding or crawling underneath the glass doors of the gates. The doors hang lower than the MTA’s regular turnstiles, but are still high enough off the ground for dedicated fare beaters to army crawl beneath.
“I can envision any number of people sliding under,” said Gary Giardina, 77. “The doors, they don’t come down low enough in my opinion.”
MTA officials said the new gates are smarter than the turnstiles of the past. The machines at Broadway-Lafayette can detect when someone is trying to sneak through without paying, and will quickly shut and blare a loud horn noise.
Videos shared on social media over the weekend showed some people tripping the feature accidentally and getting their bags wedged between the glass doors.
Torres-Springer ensured that the modern gates will be able to detect when parents enter with their children, who are allowed to ride, so long as they are no taller than 40 inches.
The feature worked for a woman who tapped into a wider, accessible gate at Broadway-Lafayette along with a child on foot and another in a baby stroller on Monday. The gates did not abruptly slam on the young family.
Conduent is competing with Cubic and STraffic as the MTA considers which company will get to install new fare gates across the city.
While the MTA mulls a design for the wider rollout, the agency has continued installing spike guards and paddles to existing fare gates as a temporary solution to fare evasion, and they're expected to be at nearly every station in the city by the end of next month.
According to MTA officials, the spikes and paddles have reduced fare evasion at the stations where they’ve been installed by 60%.
