NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — After a string of brutal subway shoves, including the murder of Michelle Aylssa Go last month, MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber said Wednesday that platform doors will be installed at three subway stations in Manhattan and Queens.
The platform doors will be tested in the Times Square station on the 7 line, the Third Avenue station on the L line, and the Sutphin Boulevard-JFK Airtrain station on the E train line, Lieber announced.
However, the agency's chief told 1010 WINS on Wednesday that the MTA is looking at a "whole range of other technologies" to curb subway shoves and jumpers.
Lieber added that he started the study before 40-year-old Go was fatally shoved in front of an oncoming train at the Times Square station.
"I saw that more people were getting on the tracks, so we're testing laser interdiction technology, thermal interdiction technologies, CCTV combined with artificial intelligence, all to let train operators and other staff know if there are people on the tracks faster than they can detect with the naked eye," he said.
He said that the agency is studying these other advances to "overcome some of the engineering obstacles" that might prevent screen doors from being installed.
"Right now, we need a full menu of options and part of this ... is [that] we are going to be doing messaging because a lot of people are getting on the tracks voluntarily just to retrieve a dropped cell phone, just to cross from platform to platform. This is nuts," Liber continued.
Following Wednesday's move that advocates have urged, Lieber said the most important thing is for commuters to feel safe, praising Mayor Eric Adams' new subway safety plan announced last week with Gov. Kathy Hochul.
"The mayor stepped out on Friday and put it on his back. The governor stepped out with him and put it on her back that we are going to make the system not just be safer but feel safer," he added. "That is essential to bring New Yorkers back to transit to get normality back to our city. That's why we are focusing on safety because it's on our riders' minds; they are telling us again and again."
While the MTA initially dismissed the platform door concept as being too costly, Lieber said Wednesday that further research into these technologies is beneficial.
"[It's] to get a sense of how much it will cost. Can we build it efficiently?" he added. "Can we do it without disrupting operations? And then we're going to try and figure out how to work it into the capital program along with many many other safety initiatives that we have underway ... We can find some money for these initial pilots, then we can go bigger."
Meanwhile, it remains unclear when these changes could be implemented.
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