Spikes Installed on Turnstiles as Hundreds More Police Deployed on NYC Subways

Mei W.

Manhattan, New York – Metal barriers with spikes have been installed on turnstiles at Times Square 42^nd Street and Lexington Avenue 59^th Street stations in order to prevent riders from grabbing onto the sides to hop the turnstiles. The installations follow New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s State of the State Address on January 14, during which she presented her agenda for the year, including plans to increase police presence on subways and to “modernize” turnstiles to prevent fare evasion. Hochul stated that these changes “will help strengthen the financial footing of the MTA.”

The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) leads the country in its reliance on fare costs for covering their operations, in contrast to other transit systems which are covered in large part by taxes and government funding. According to New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, the MTA had debts of $42.4 billion in 2023, which is expected to increase to $59.9 billion in 2028. Janno Lieber, the MTA’s chief executive, calls fare evasion “the No. 1 existential threat” to the transit system. According to the MTA, subway fare evasions cost them around $285 million in 2022, less than 5% of the transit system’s $7 billion annual budget revenue.

In the same address, Hochul announced the deployment of 750 NYPD officers on subway platforms and 300 officers to be onboard subways during the night starting January 20. The city and state will spend $154 million to cover the total cost of this deployment. Last year, 750 state police and 500 national guards were deployed, in addition to the thousands of existing city police in the subways, to reduce “crime” and to crackdown on fare evasion. According to a Community Service Society of NY’s analysis of NYPD data, fare evasion arrest rates are highest in stations located in poor and Black neighborhoods. Last September, the NYPD shot Derrell Mickles—as well as two bystanders and another police officer—for jumping the turnstiles at a station in Brownsville, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city.

MTA subway and bus fares are scheduled to increase 4% this year. For the nearly quarter of the city’s population who live below the poverty line, costs of daily round-trip fares exceed 11% of one’s income. According to United Way NYC, living costs in the city have increased 131% for a family of four since 2000, while median earnings have increased only 71%. Meanwhile, the city continues to privatize and cut funding for public housing, pushing working class and poor residents further out of the city. According to the Pratt Center, 2/3 of New Yorkers who have commutes longer than an hour each way to work earn less than $35,000 annually. Fare hikes throughout MTA’s 70 year history have been met with resistance, most recently in early 2020, when hundreds of protesters poured glue on turnstiles and set off smoke bombs in stations to protest fare hikes and the militarization of the transit system.

Photo: Spikes on turnstiles to prevent subway riders from holding on to the edge to hop the turnstile.

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