Platform Screen Doors

It's all relative on ridership. "All-time high" on the T

The other thing I've wondered about these "all time high" figures... I imagine they are only measured since the dawn of the MBTA. If you look at some of the pictures of the downtown stations back in the MTA days it was PACKED.

The MBTA started when ridership was at an all time low for the whole system. Also, the system has expanded since then, so ridership is going to go up anyway just from further reaching lines.
 
We get video of folks falling on tracks because there's video cams everywhere. The rate of people falling on tracks hasn't changed. The track area is much safer than it used to be because it's always being monitored.


It's all relative on ridership. "All-time high" on the T--the whole T--still pales in comparison to the Lexington Ave. line--one NYC subway line--on any given day of the week. We are orders of magnitude off scale from bona fide sardine-can transit.

The only valid comparison is station ridership compared to station platform width.

Wonder if those stats exist
 
You think its cheaper to get the red line running at 3 minutes than putting platform doors at park?

No, and I never said that. Do I think it's more valuable and worthwhile than PSDs at this point? Definitely.

The only valid comparison is station ridership compared to station platform width.

Wonder if those stats exist

In 2010, Park Street-Downtown Crossing (Red/Orange/Green) saw an average of 42,716 boardings making it by far the most utilized station complex in the MBTA system. That same year, NYC's busiest subway complex, Times Square-42nd Street (A/C/E/N/Q/R/S/1/2/3/7), saw an average of 182,170.

Though I don't have stats on the platform widths, it seems like there isn't a huge difference between the two complexes. The reason NYC is able to handle so many more passengers is because its platforms are longer and there are several more routings which converge at Times Square, compared to only three lines at Park-DTX.
 
To me the primary issue is comfort, not safety. I drive my car everywhere, even to downtown, because I get to drive in air conditioned comfort, and I despise heat. If there were PSDs and air conditioning I might consider the T. Agree or disagree, there's lots of people who think like me.
 
I don't feel like I spend long enough on the platforms for it to really bother me. Are your parking garages air conditioned too?
 
PSDs isolate the station platforms from the heat of the tunnels, but I don't think a single system is actually air conditioned. That would be a pretty absurd peripheral expense at this point considering it does nothing to further operational efficiencies. Think about it: the idea is to move people from one place to another - you're not waiting on the platforms long enough for temperature to be a major deterrent for use.
 
PSDs isolate the station platforms from the heat of the tunnels, but I don't think a single system is actually air conditioned. That would be a pretty absurd peripheral expense at this point considering it does nothing to further operational efficiencies. Think about it: the idea is to move people from one place to another - you're not waiting on the platforms long enough for temperature to be a major deterrent for use.

Dubai is
 
You're right - forgot about Dubai. But I don't think we need to run down all of the differences between Boston and Dubai that make AC a necessity in the UAE while it will always be a nice-to-have in New England. Comparing Dubai to anywhere else is really apples to oranges.
 
Of course Dubai would A/C the system. They also build mega-skyscrapers made out of glass in the middle of the desert. It's the most recklessly least-sustainable place in this freaking world.
 
Even without air conditioning, just isolating the platform and the tunnel from each other should generate a noticeable improvement in temperature, and certainly in noise quality as well.

Platform doors also have a nice aesthetic to them, I think. I would like to see them in the future.
 
Even without air conditioning, just isolating the platform and the tunnel from each other should generate a noticeable improvement in temperature, and certainly in noise quality as well.

Platform doors also have a nice aesthetic to them, I think. I would like to see them in the future.

"Nice" things vs. "needed" things. Platform screen doors don't even rate in the Top 20 on things that would make a functional difference to the T riding experience. We don't have the platform overcrowding issues, system-wide noise level issues (i.e. express tracks everywhere), or system-wide temperature control issues that make it the practical argument the few places it is used. So what's the justification then for a purely aesthetic touch for somebody's purely subjective sense of aesthetics when that comes with a couple thousand lbs. of added moving parts to maintain...per platform...per station? There is none. And except for brand new subway lines or retrofits for dangerous sardine-can cases, nobody has come up with the function-over-form argument for it. It's pure waste in the absence of a combo of acute, systemic levels of any of the aforementioned crowd/temp/noise control problems.

There needs to be actionable evidence that screen doors MEASURABLY impact the above experience to be worth doing. People go to a subway platform to get from Point A to Point B, and spend as little time on the platform--or looking around the platform--as possible. You're not going to attract a new transit rider who wasn't going to the subway before with niceties like that. If they're that fickle, they're not going to want to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other people to begin with. If that were enough of a lure to return *some* investment on ridership, the T would've already purchased every suburban CR park-and-rider a personal recliner and wall-to-wall platform carpeting.
 
I don't feel like I spend long enough on the platforms for it to really bother me. Are your parking garages air conditioned too?

And if anyone does spend that much time on the platform (I find Park St pretty stuffy while waiting for the right Green Line train), it means that there's a funding priority for anything that improves train frequency. Not platform screen doors.
 
just isolating the platform and the tunnel from each other should generate a noticeable improvement in temperature

Do we even know the source of these bizarre temps? I always presumed it was steam tunnels abutting the stations. So I don't know that this would help.
 
^ Most of the heat in the tunnels originates from the trains themselves: motors, brakes and, last but not least, AC.

"Nice" things vs. "needed" things. Platform screen doors don't even rate in the Top 20 on things that would make a functional difference to the T riding experience. We don't have the platform overcrowding issues, system-wide noise level issues (i.e. express tracks everywhere), or system-wide temperature control issues that make it the practical argument the few places it is used. So what's the justification then for a purely aesthetic touch for somebody's purely subjective sense of aesthetics when that comes with a couple thousand lbs. of added moving parts to maintain...per platform...per station? There is none. And except for brand new subway lines or retrofits for dangerous sardine-can cases, nobody has come up with the function-over-form argument for it. It's pure waste in the absence of a combo of acute, systemic levels of any of the aforementioned crowd/temp/noise control problems.

There needs to be actionable evidence that screen doors MEASURABLY impact the above experience to be worth doing. People go to a subway platform to get from Point A to Point B, and spend as little time on the platform--or looking around the platform--as possible. You're not going to attract a new transit rider who wasn't going to the subway before with niceties like that. If they're that fickle, they're not going to want to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other people to begin with. If that were enough of a lure to return *some* investment on ridership, the T would've already purchased every suburban CR park-and-rider a personal recliner and wall-to-wall platform carpeting.

Couldn't agree more. Where's the petition for the "F-Line for MBTA GM" campaign? ;)
 
yeah, I've heard that back in the day before the trains had A/C the stations used to be cool. Now that the trains have A/C they are cranking out hot air underground.
 
Had a Austrian visitor complain to me about the A/C on trains here. Said it made them too cold. Culture thing. I think he also noted something about the heat from the condensers flowing into the stations.
 
Some GL trains can be absolutely freezing to the point of me shivering. BL too. Haven't noticed it on RL and certainly not the OL.
 
yeah, I've heard that back in the day before the trains had A/C the stations used to be cool. Now that the trains have A/C they are cranking out hot air underground.

Green Line, specifically. The tunnels stayed uniformly cool in the PCC era where all trolleys only had fans. Once the LRV's with their roof-mounted AC's took over the stations got hot in summer due to the cars wind-tunneling their self-produced hot air exhaust into stations. Red/Orange/Blue don't really have that problem with their more standard-design cars with under-body HVAC's that exhaust more uniformly at the track level. So you just don't find heavy rail stations as uncomfortable as Arlington, Boylston, or Park in mid-summer.


Definitely not bad enough to require climate controlling stations. They might have a better luck controlling this with standard-dimension LRV's. Other cities can do fully-enclosed roof AC units with their extra inches of clearance, which helps a lot at air distribution. Green Line has to leave all the electronics bare and exposed at the top to shave space off the roof, and distributed oddly. In addition to pumping out hotter air from the lack of shielding it makes the roofs much less aerodynamic and they just push their own exhaust along into the next station instead of letting it dissipate in the tunnel. If they just fixed that few feet of low ceiling in the C/D portal tunnel and bought off-shelf units with standard-dimension rounded/enclosed roofs (sort of like the original, pre-AC upgrade Boeings), you might be shocked at how much cooler it is on the platform mid-August. The current heat situation is a totally post-1985 phenomenon from the Type 7's/8's, the rebuilt Boeings, and the end of PCC's.
 
I think Government Center (GL level) is the worst. No matter how cool it is outside, it's always 30 degrees hotter downstairs. I wouldn't be surprised if the heat index down there actually reached harmful/dangerous levels during the summer. I've definitely felt woozy waiting down there for an E train for 20+ minutes.
 
This is one good reason why heavy rail lines in the US should consider installing platform screens or gates, along with all the people that fell onto the tracks recently on the T.

Man Dies After Push Onto Track
By TAMER EL-GHOBASHY and TED MANN

A Queens man was struck and killed by an incoming train at a Midtown subway station after getting into an altercation with an apparently emotionally disturbed assailant who pushed him onto the tracks, authorities said.

Witnesses described a fast-moving series of events that unfolded at about 12:30 p.m. on the southbound platform of the 49th Street station near Times Square, a law-enforcement official said. There, 58-year-old Ki-Suck Han got into "some type of dispute" with another man, who then pushed him into the path of an approaching Q train, the official said.

Police arriving on the scene discovered Mr. Han caught between the platform and the subway car. He was removed and taken to St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center by ambulance, where he died, police said.

According to Paul Browne, the top spokesman for the New York Police Department, witnesses reported seeing the suspect talking to himself as he walked along the subway platform. He then approached the victim and "exchanged words" before pushing him onto the tracks as the train bore down on the station, Mr. Browne said.

The victim fell into the tracks and unsuccessfully attempted to climb back onto the platform, Mr. Browne said.

Mr. Browne said the suspect appeared to be emotionally disturbed to some of the witnesses and it was unclear what kind of conversation he had engaged in with the victim.

The suspect, who was being sought late Monday, was described by witnesses as a black man in his late 20s or early 30s wearing a tan T-shirt, black slacks and a black knit cap and holding a three-quarter-length black coat. He had short dreadlocks.

People who answered the door at Mr. Han's Elmhurst home Monday night declined to comment. Sobbing could be heard inside the apartment.

"There was an argument," said a witness who spoke after being interviewed by police at a Midtown precinct, but declined to provide his name. "There was no screaming."

"It was all so quick," he added.

Patrick Gomez, 37, of Saddle Brook, N.J., said he was near the back of the platform when he heard "a thud" followed by screaming. Then, he said, "the train came to an abrupt stop."

He said it took paramedics about 20 minutes to extract the victim from the tracks. "People were just standing in shock," Mr. Gomez said.

The incident appeared to echo one of the city's most notorious subway attacks: the 1999 killing of Kendra Webdale, who was pushed in front of a train by an emotionally disturbed man.

Investigators on the scene spoke with stunned-looking witnesses, including three people who were put into a police van and driven away from the scene. Uniformed officers diverted riders trying to enter the subway station to 42nd Street. The train's conductor and another witness were being treated for trauma.

Mr. Han's neighbors said that while they knew the man, he mostly kept to himself and had lived in the apartment for a few years. "He's very nice. He takes out the garbage, he sweeps the front," said a next-door neighbor. "He would sit in the front and smoke his cigarettes, he would do his barbecue in the back."

Hours after the attack, Q, N and R trains were still bypassing the station at West 49th Street and Seventh Avenue as police continued the investigation.

It was the second time this year that a dispute on a subway platform led to a passenger being fatally struck by a train.

Two men who fought on the L train platform in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood in March ended up falling onto the tracks, where 20-year-old student Joshua Basin was struck and killed by an incoming train.

Mr. Basin's assailant was eventually charged with several misdemeanors in the incident, including attempted third-degree assault.

In 2000, a deranged man tried to push four people off platforms at two stations in Manhattan before being arrested.

In 2010, a cook was convicted of assault after pushing a woman into the side of a moving subway car at the 28th Street and Broadway station, which serves the Q, N and R trains.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...0.html?mod=googlenews_wsj#articleTabs=article

Pretty shocking photo posted by the NY Post:

vGJp8MS01-650x740.png
 

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