New Elevators Coming To L Line, After MTA Postpones Barrier Pilot

GRAMERCY, NY — The MTA has postponed a pilot program of barriers to prevent straphangers from falling onto the tracks at the Third Avenue L station, but instead will shift the project's budget to install elevators at the same line's Sixth Avenue station, the top transit official told The Wall Street Journal.

The barrier pilot aimed to install screen doors on the Third Avenue station platform would have stopped commuters from falling, jumping or being pushed onto the subway tracks. Transit officials aimed to award a contract for the pilot in July, but now the program's $30 million budget will be put toward adding four new elevators at the Sixth Avenue station two stops west of the initial project, a transit official told the newspaper.

“I absolutely want to do a platform screen door trial,” New York City Transit President Andy Byford told The Wall Street Journal. “But I think this is a better and more important use of the funding right now.”

The "half-height" barriers would have run along the edge of the station's platforms with sliding gates where train doors open, according to MTA documents reviewed by The Journal. The screens can also help prevent track fires by curbing the spread of litter.

The pilot will eventually be tested at another station. An MTA spokesman wouldn't say where or when that would happen, but did note that the elevator construction comes after a lawsuit urging the authority to make stations more accessible during the 15-month L train shutdown to repair damage from Superstorm Sandy.

"The platform screen door pilot program is held, to be implemented at another station in the future," said Andrei Berman, an MTA spokesman in a statement to Patch. "In the meantime, we are doing one more accessibility project, at 6th Ave and 14th Street. This is the same station we recently signed an agreement to make accessible in response to a lawsuit calling for more accessibility work to be done during the L train tunnel reconstruction."

Disability advocates will praise the move, which allows for greater access to the bustling station that saw nearly 51,000 commuters swipe into the stop on a given weekday in 2016, according to MTA data. But some MTA commissioners are sorry to see the pilot shelved.

“It shouldn’t be either, or,” Commissioner Charles Moerdler told The Wall Street Journal. “In my view, they are a potential saver of lives.”

On an average weekday in May, 31 trains were delayed because of people on the tracks and 33 trains were delayed because of fire, smoke or debris — representing about 2.3 percent of weekday delays that month, according to MTA data reported by the newspaper.

Photo courtesy of Metropolitan Transportation Authority