(Bloomberg) -- New York City subway service was disrupted on two consecutive days this week due to people being struck by trains, days after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority began testing platform safety barriers at one station in Manhattan.
A person was struck and killed by a train in Brooklyn on Tuesday, temporarily shutting down service on the B line and causing severe delays on both B and Q trains. Police are investigating the incident. On Monday, the N, Q, R and W subway lines had to be rerouted after a person was hit by a train at the 14th Street-Union Square station in Manhattan.
Monday’s incident came the day after the MTA installed its first yellow platform barriers as part of a pilot program to protect people from falling or being pushed onto the tracks. The first test is at the 191st Street subway station in Washington Heights, and additional barriers will be installed in three more stations, including the West 8th Street-New York Aquarium stop in Brooklyn’s Coney Island and at the Clark Street Station in Brooklyn Heights.
“It’s still in an experimental phase and we will be watching carefully to determine if the barriers are effective at deterring track intrusions without interfering with passenger circulation,” MTA Chief Executive Officer Janno Lieber said in a statement. “If they pass the test, we will be ready to deploy widely.”
The barrier test is part of a larger effort from the MTA’s New York City Transit division to improve safety in subways, as it continues to deal with delays caused by collisions with people on the tracks. In 2022, the MTA’s customer injury rate dropped slightly to 3.27 per million customers. That’s still higher than the pre-pandemic rate of about 2.94 in 2019, according to MTA documents.
While barriers may help, suicides account for 25% of train collisions and 35% of fatalities, according to a 2022 report by the MTA.
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