The MTA is doubling down on its new glass fare gates, expanding them to 20 more subway stations across the city, touting a 35% reduction in fare evasion and projected savings of $100 million annually.
The expansion will replace every set of turnstiles at the stations, rather than just one turnstile as had been the case for the first 20 gates installed under a pilot program launched last year.
The pilot gates cut into fare evasion by an average of 35% and could recover $100 million a year in unpaid fares, officials said Wednesday.
“When something works, we double down,” Hochul said at a press conference at the MTA’s Consolidated Revenue Facility in Queens.
“These new fare gates have created a better riding experience for customers and made it harder for would-be fare evaders to enter the system without paying.”
The MTA loses roughly $350 million annually from fare beaters.
The next round will include high-traffic stations including 14th Street-Union Square, Bedford Avenue,161st Street-Yankee Stadium and Flushing-Main Street, which already had pilot gates, but will now have every turnstile replaced with the new gates.
The MTA’s rosy projections follow months of scrutiny over whether the panels were working as advertised — and how much taxpayers will get back from a $1.1 billion investment to overhaul station entries at 150 stations.
In March, the fare evasion reductions MTA touted were found to be based on just one week of data and when MTA head Janno Lieber was asked how much revenue the gates would recover he “took the fifth.”
When the gates first launched videos of commuters easily outmaneuvering the glass panels went viral on social media.
A man with a cane was even able to defeat the gates at Broadway-Lafayette.
Alongside questions about the gates’ effectiveness, safety issues immediately arose after a 5-year-old girl got her head caught between the panels and was rushed to a hospital.
Hochul said the MTA plans to add 50 more gates by the end of the year and eventually install the gates at all 472 of its stations.
