Transit officials praise the ‘modern, elegant barrier’ as New Yorkers prepare to vault, limbo and charm their way through it
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has announced that it will spend more than a billion dollars on subway fare gates, replacing the humble turnstile with a sleek glass door designed to stop fare evasion by looking so expensive that nobody dares to touch it. The MTA is proceeding with a $1.1 billion plan to put modern fare gates at 150 stations, and the initial response from the public has been a long and thoughtful silence followed by a man in Bushwick saying ‘Watch this’.
Why the Subway Fare Gates Cost What They Cost
The turnstile has served the city since the nineteen-twenties, a faithful iron cross that has been hopped, ducked, kicked and slid under by more New Yorkers than a customs desk. Officials now say that the old model has reached the end of its natural life, and a modern replacement is required. The new design features a pair of glass doors that slide shut after every passenger, with what the agency calls ‘an enhanced deterrent profile’.
The cost has attracted attention. At roughly seven million dollars per station, the new fare gates are among the most expensive doors in human history, a category formerly dominated by the entrance to a Swiss vault. ‘You are not buying a door,’ said agency procurement chief Evangeline Thackeray-Moore. ‘You are buying the idea of a door. You are buying the emotional certainty that a door exists.’
How They Work, Allegedly
According to a technical briefing, a passenger will tap a card, the doors will part with a dignified hiss, and the passenger will walk through feeling a heightened sense of civic belonging. If a passenger does not tap, the doors will remain closed, and an alarm will sound, and a recorded voice will say, in a tone of deep disappointment, ‘Please try again.’ The voice has been trained on a hundred years of New York mothers.
What Fare Evaders Are Saying
Evasion experts, reached outside a station in Brooklyn, were impressed. ‘It is a beautiful design,’ said one man, who declined to give his name but did give his thoughts. ‘The glass makes it look so fragile. It feels like a challenge.’ Another said that the doors reminded him of the revolving ones at a department store, which he had also beaten.
The Wider Politics of Subway Fare Gates
The project arrives at a moment of high tension within the agency. Only this week, the MTA chair was in the headlines for accusing the head of the Penn Station rebuild of going ‘full MAGA’, and observers note that the fare gate plan allows the agency to be seen doing something visible, in a year where visibility is at a premium. A modern fare gate can be photographed. A budget gap cannot.
Britain has long had its own difficult relationship with the barrier. The London Underground, a system with a comparable mixture of grandeur and grumbling, was once accused of designing tickets that taught advanced mathematics, and passengers who confronted the system’s famous gates were counselled to approach them with the humility of a student before an examiner. The Tube’s own mapmakers, meanwhile, have been lampooned for producing a map that continues lying with good intentions, and its latest redesign was announced with the solemn confidence of a government adviser, as the London Tube unveiled its new map, to widespread confusion and quiet applause.
Five Things the New Gates Do Not Stop
The gates do not stop a toddler. They do not stop a person who is following another person very closely and breathing in a way that implies confidence. They do not stop a man with a large suitcase and a stronger sense of destiny. They do not stop the seven-foot-tall gentleman who simply steps over, as one steps over a puddle. And they do not stop a determined New Yorker, who regards a closed door as an invitation to prove something.
The Business Case
The agency says that lost revenue from fare evasion runs to hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and that the gates will pay for themselves within a decade. Economists were polite about this. ‘It is a bold claim,’ said one, with the stillness of a man holding an expensive vase. ‘It assumes the gates work, that they continue to work, that they do not need maintenance, and that nobody anywhere ever discovers a stick.’
A study commissioned by the agency to answer this question was completed last spring. Its findings were presented in a briefing room with excellent lighting. The conclusion, in full, was: ‘Possibly.’
Looking Ahead to a Smoother Commute
When the first of the glass gates is finally installed, the ribbon will be cut by a dignitary, and a small band will play. A line of passengers will stand patiently, smartphones in hand, for the door to open. It will not. A technician will arrive, and push a button, and the doors will open to a round of polite applause. By the afternoon, a young man will have found a new way in, and a video of it will be viewed two million times.
It is the circle of transit life. In the meantime, the agency has promised that the new gates will be cleaner, safer and more elegant, and a little more likely to jam, which it says is part of the charm. Readers curious about how business and absurdity collide in a major city can find a lot to enjoy in our guide to London business satire. And for every commuter who hates paying a fare, there is still the comfort of a long-standing New York principle: the subway fare gates may change, but the complaining never will. For more of the same, see Newsthump, and this report comes to you via Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
SOURCE: bohiney.com