The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has installed its first harder-to-jump fare gates at a Queens station as part of a test of potential designs aimed at staunching the fare beating crisis that stole $690 million from the agency’s coffers last year.
The new array at the Sutphin Boulevard-Archer Avenue station replaces the decades-old turnstiles with barriers that feature taller paddles that make them harder to jump or crawl under, which swing open and then close after tapping in via OMNY or swiping a MetroCard.
“I don’t think I’ve seen technology that’s perfect in any city, frankly,” said Rich Davey, the MTA’s top executive for the city subway and bus systems, at the official unveiling on Monday. “But this is obviously going a long way to improving our current turnstile system.”
The paddles allow straphangers with bags or luggage to easily walk through, an advantage that made the Sutphin Blvd. stop a logical first spot because it connects to the JFK Airtrain via the larger Jamaica Station complex.
The 8th Avenue-Penn Station A/C/E will be the second station to get the new setup, which is set to be installed next week, officials said.
These new gates are manufactured by Cubic Corporation, the contractor behind the MTA’s massively delayed and buggy OMNY fare payment system.
However, officials had few other details about the new pilot program immediately available, including its price tag and how the gates were purchased as the MTA bureaucracy still has yet to formally issue its request for device specifications to other major vendors.
“These are the gates that we found that were available to us today,” said Quemuel Arroyo, the MTA executive who oversees the MTA’s program to improve access for the disabled.
The installation comes seven months after the MTA revealed several demonstration models of fare gates that are commonly used in other major U.S. and European transit systems as potential replacements for its turnstile setups.
They typically featured either tall paddles or double-leaf plastic barriers that are far harder to jump over or crawl under than the current waist-high turnstiles.
MTA chairman Janno Lieber has also said that he hopes the Fire Department will approve changes to the station designs that will allow the agency to do away with the emergency fare gates that are often propped open, which he’s dubbed the ‘super highway’ of fare evasion.
Davey did not have an update on those negotiations on Monday.