New Yorkers should expect new turnstiles at 20 subway stations by the end of the year, MTA officials said Monday — with another 20 coming in 2026.
The update is the latest in a yearslong plan to remove the familiar turnstile and replace it with the kinds of toll gates seen in transit systems throughout the world — gates that use plexiglass panels or doors that the MTA hopes will be harder for riders to jump over or otherwise evade.
“These gates are the cutting edge,” MTA’s construction and development head, Jamie Torres-Springer, told the agency’s board on Monday. “[They] are aimed at both ensuring fare compliance and making the system more accessible and easier to use.”
Transit officials announced Monday that it had selected four firms — Conduent, Cubic, Scheidt & Bachmann and STraffic — whose fair gates the MTA would begin testing at 20 subway stations this fall.
Cubic manufactured the current MetroCard system, and the MTA has been testing a modern gate-based setup from the firm at the Sutphin Blvd.-Archer Ave. station on the E, J and Z lines since late 2023.
Though some straphangers quickly found a way to trip an exit sensor and ride for free, MTA crews made a fix, and later credited the Cubic system with a 20% reduction in fare evasion.
Conduent’s systems will soon be familiar to Garden State commuters — their fare gates are slated to be installed at NJ Transit’s Secaucus Junction and Newark Airport stations.
The other firms offerings may be more familiar to tourists. STraffic manufactures fare gates currently in use on the D.C. Metro, and Scheidt-Bachmann’s equipment can be found on Boston’s MBTA.
The list of 20 stations set to receive new fare gates from the four firms has not yet been finalized. But transit officials said it would include Brooklyn’s Atlantic Ave.-Barclays Center station, the Nostrand Ave. station on the A and C line, and the Crown Heights-Utica Ave. on the No. 3 and 4 line.
In Manhattan, the new fare arrays will be installed at Union Square, as well as the 42nd St. stop on the A, C and E and the Delancey St.-Essex St. station of the F, J, M and Z.
In Queens, the new technology will go to the Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Ave. station and the Forest Hills-71st Ave. station of the E, F, M and R.
A dozen other stations, yet to be determined, are also slated to get the tech by year’s end.
The MTA has budgeted $1.1 billion in its five year capital plan — which has yet to be approved by Albany — to install modern fare gates at 150 stations in the next five years.
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