There is no comfort that the death of Michelle Alyssa Go, age 40, is a policy failure of the highest magnitude. On January 15th, 2022, Ms. Go was pushed onto the tracks of the Brooklyn-bound R Subway as the train was pulling into Times Square; she was pronounced dead-on-scene. Her alleged assailant has reportedly had a history of over two decades of assault; in 2019, he was declared mentally unfit to stand trial for a drug possession charge, according to prosecutors. Newly elected Mayor Eric Adams, a former NYCT Transit Police Officer, visited the station that afternoon, stating that he and Governor Kathy Hochul would be working on getting more officers and mental health experts in Subway stations. But Ms. Go’s death is not just about mental health, crime in subway stations, or policing: her death is a glaring reminder that the MTA and elected officials must incorporate safety infrastructure measures, such as Platform Screen Doors (PSDs), in design and construction, so New York City can combat these unnecessarily tragic events.
According to The City, there were 169 reported incidents of trains hitting people in 2020, of which 63 were fatal. This is compared to the 62 fatal occurrences in 2019, when ridership was much higher. This increase could be related to the mental health issues stemming from the Pandemic. These types of incidents further demonstrate infrastructure that perhaps a police officer or counselor cannot provide: instant, real-time prevention. Just by having barriers up, by having something that physically stops an action from being taken, there would be little-to-no need for human intervention. With major staffing issues because of the Omicron variant, we do not know if and how someone could have prevented what occurred that Saturday morning. We do know that six officers covering all of the Times Square station is insufficient, and that the surest protection against an accidental or purposeful fall onto the subway tracks is a physical barrier.
So, if the solution is platform screen doors, why hasn’t the problem been solved? Like most transit issues: follow the money. While the AirTrain that connects the MTA to JFK does have PSDs, none of the 472 Subway Stations have any form of protection. In a press meeting after Ms. Guo’s death, MTA Acting Chair Janno Lieber stated that “platform doors are an idea that works in many places, but there are special complexities in New York… That said, we’re always looking for ways that we can make the system safer.” New York exceptionalism is no excuse for the lack of safety measures in place, but it does bring up some of the major challenges of installing PSDs in an older subway system. In 2017, the MTA commissioned a report by consulting firm STV, which resulted in a 3,000 page paper on the difficulty of installing PSDs. Some of the highlights of the report include:
- Roughly 33% (or 154 of the 472) of stations are too narrow to both accommodate wheelchairs and the machinery needed for screen doors.
- Because of the age of many of the underground stations, the support columns on the platforms would not leave room for screen doors.
- Different lines and different track gauges make uniformity impossible: while certain stations on the A/C could have doors (costing $30M per station), many stops along the L line could not have protection.
According to Bay Area Rapid Transit, there are no US subway systems that currently use PSDs or any form of screen protection. So, are the issues that Americans have a warped measurement of danger and lackluster governing tools? Perhaps, these tragedies are not frequent enough to raise the capital, despite one death being one too many. These are grim outlooks, but there are global solutions that US systems could adopt to mitigate this problem. For example, in Japan, a 2011 law was passed that any station that has over 100,000 daily riders must have some sort of form of protection from the tracks. One solution, from the West Japan Railway Company (further explained here) are 10-meter long metal wires that lower and rise when trains are pulling into the station, and use QR scanning technology to operate. A full video of these fences and wires can be seen here. As the full report states, by 2015, over 90% of riders felt more safe. There are several other types of PSDs that are used around the world, from newer systems in Brazil, to the older systems in London and Paris, which the Washington Post summarizes in detail. As systems and nations solutions, the US risks appearing lethargic and dispassionate on rider safety.
What will it finally take for New York City to end the needless deaths and accidents caused by falling onto the train tracks? Will it be an increase in events, as Mayor Michael Bloomberg stated in 2013? Will it be about finding solutions that maintain ADA-accessibility, even though PSDs would deliver dire protection when compared with guidance bumps on the gaps for the blind? Will it be political pressure that elected officials may fall upon, not appointed MTA employees? There are other benefits to PSDs, such as the reduction of litter on tracks which cause both delays and air pollution. But for an agency that stresses the importance of safety for riders and operators, inaction against this epidemic is an institutional and policy failure which the MTA must correct immediately and without hesitation.