Fare evasion is draining millions from the MTA each year and the agency is ramping up its efforts to crack down on the illegal practice.
Its latest move is installing crescent-shaped metal shields on the turnstiles at the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall/Chambers Street station.
This follows last month’s addition of spiked turnstiles at the Lexington Avenue-59th Street station in Manhattan and is another physical deterrent meant to prevent riders from skipping fares by making jumping over more difficult.
With close to $700 million in lost revenue in 2022, fare and toll evasion have reached crisis levels in New York City and the MTA remains under pressure to take action before its impacts become irreversible.
It remains to be seen whether these new barriers will effectively curb the problem or simply push riders to find new ways around them, such as jumping over.
Critics argue that more enforcement and outreach are needed rather than physical deterrents while others question whether these modifications will make stations less accessible for paying riders.
In 2023, the MTA introduced new electronic gates to prevent fare evasion, but a viral TikTok video revealed that the doors could be easily bypassed by waving a hand over the exit sensor.
Recently, with the new crescent-shaped metal shields installed in lower Manhattan, New Yorkers Keith Kelly and Justin Jimenez told CBS News that they believe that the shields “don’t seem very effective” and “can [easily be hopped over]” and bypassed, much like the gates in 2023, respectively.
Riders wasted no time in finding ways around the new metal shields.
An image captured by Stephen Long, a photographer for The Ticker, shows just how easy it is to bypass them as one commuter effortlessly crawled under the barrier.
While these may not stop everyone from skipping the fare, some subway riders remain optimistic.
“I think it could work. It could work. We’ll have to see,” Marie Edden told CBS News.
Currently, Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall/Chambers Street station is the only one with the new barricades as the MTA evaluates their effectiveness.
Fare evasion is not just a financial issue according to officials, but one that undermines the system’s overall safety and order.
“When it feels disorderly at the entrance to our system, that is harmful to everybody,” MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said.
In response, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a plan last month to prioritize subway security and combat fare evasion, including installing more barriers at 100 other stations, increasing NYPD presence and modernized gates.
“The MTA will be installing even more barriers in 100 additional stations. Also, bright LED lighting in every station by the end of the year and the shameless toll evaders, fare evaders, will finally be stopped with modernized gates,” Hochul said in her State of the State address last month.
Whether these measures will be effective in the long run remains uncertain, but recent data shows some progress—fare evasion dropped by 26% between June and Dec. 2024, according to Hochul.
For now, the agency continues to rely on physical deterrents and increased enforcement to regain control of a system that loses hundreds of millions of dollars annually to unpaid fares.
