Platform screen doors.

[stick n move]

So platform screen doors are in wide use in many countries around the world, but not the us due to the old age of our subways. There are companies that can install them now to fit basically any system. These doors have huge value to riders #1 being increased safety, much less trash on the tracks, the ability to heat/ac the stations due to no open tunnels. There are 2 main reasons why they havent caught on in the US the first being price, the second being the non standard layouts of subway doors. With technology both of these issues have been fixed.

There is a company who proposed installing AND maintaining the entire system FOR FREE in NYC as long as they could use the space for advertising. NYC had contemplated it, but deemed due to the non standard door layouts its too tough. Also NYC is unique in that its system runs 24/7 so theres not much time to install them. We dont have that problem.

This leads to the next point. New technology allows the doors to be able to sense where the train doors are and adjust to line up perfectly.

Now with the major improvements made to our transit, including new cars not being replaced any time soon, the pricetag of FREE, the tech that lets this work on any system, and our non 24 hour transit system that would allow this work to be done I have 1 question.

Why the hell are we not doing, considering, talking about, or even pretending we want this? This (free) addition to our subways could be one of the single best upgrades we could do to our old system to bring it to the 21st century. Boston wants to innovate right? Lets do this...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/nyc-could-have-subway-push-barriers-for-free-2013-1

Video showing how the new doors adjust to any system.
https://youtu.be/NForkmmz1QU

Full length when low ceilings. Video screen ads shown are what make them free. Tbh it looks good plus its even something to look at when your standing there.

Wrap around when high ceilings. Keeps the look of iconic high ceiling stations in tact.

Half length for safety but no climate control

Outdoors

Welcome to the 21st century

Its free, its adjustable, its safe, no more hot as balls subway stations in summer... If 3rd world countries can have this idk why Boston cant. Itd be great if we lead the charge in the US. Someone has to be first and its inevitable they come eventually. Why wait? Theyre already proven... literally everywhere in the world but here. Its time.

 

[stefal]

Screen doors are currently 900th on the checklist for the MBTA. There's a multi-billion dollar state-of-good-repair backlog that we have to fix first.

It likely wouldn't be free for Boston, as NYC's annual ridership numbers are 6x Boston's, so the ROI for the advertising firm is likely much higher in NYC than Boston.

Climate control for any MBTA station is a pipe dream, to say the least. Getting the proper ducts down in decades-old, poorly built underground structures is damn near feasibly impossible.

I also can't trust the buearacracy at the MBTA to allow for something relatively simple, the standard door spacing/automated driving, to be implemented seamlessly, timely, and/or fiscally responsibly. Pick one. You won't get the other two.

This would likely require station closures. As you note, we don't have a 24/7 system, but the small break that's open overnight really becomes ~2 hours for work to be done so as to avoid morning delays. The amount of preparation that goes into overnight work is pretty impressive. It'd be a miracle for 2 hours of work to get you far enough to consider it as marginal progress in installing these screens.

I believe there's a study floating out there somewhere for these doors. It'll likely be posted, pushed out to the Globe, and forgotten about a week later.

 

[stick n move]

I was prepared for the negativity but its all good. If they would do it free here as well, like theyve done in other cities and offered in NYC, I think its a no brainer. Yea theres less ridership, but also wayyyy less infrastructure to install.

Yea it would be far down on the list, but if its an outside company installing it, paying for it, and maintaining it, its on its own list. I think its something that shouldnt just be discarded immediately as “its great but itll never happen here” is all Im saying.

The free part is what makes it not something that should just be buried under the pile of MBTA needs. If your handing it off to another company the MBTA would be minimally tied up in this. I think it would be great and IMO its inevitable anyways that itll catch on in America so do you wanna deal with it now or later. I think the sooner the better and it would be great to be first. Go from a notoriously shaky transit system to all new cars and updated stations in a few years. If I was the MBTA Id be begging for them to do this.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

Screen doors are currently 900th on the checklist for the MBTA. There's a multi-billion dollar state-of-good-repair backlog that we have to fix first.

This is the main reason they aren't a thing not only here, but across North America. If we funded rapid transit state-of-repair like Euroland did, then this would easily be up there on the list. But it's not.

It likely wouldn't be free for Boston, as NYC's annual ridership numbers are 6x Boston's, so the ROI for the advertising firm is likely much higher in NYC than Boston.

The startup costs for first screen door installations are enormous. Then it gets better once you have enough of an installed base to start scaling. So first dip is going to be hardest by far, and harder here than in NYC.

I would be extremely distrustful of any sales pitch for maintenance-intensive heavy mechanical hardware whose maint costs are supposedly underwritten by video ad revenues. That doesn't wash at all.

Climate control for any MBTA station is a pipe dream, to say the least. Getting the proper ducts down in decades-old, poorly built underground structures is damn near feasibly impossible.

Yes. And keep in mind that hot summer temps in the subway are a wholly modern post-1970's phenomenon from the first cars on each line installed with air conditioning. The subways were uniformly cool when cars on all 4 lines only had fan cooling, and the piston effect blew cool air from the fans into the stations. Now it's all hot air circulating from the HVAC exhaust. That's not really a problem that's going to be solved by platform screen doors unless there's an accompanying duct installation and the platform screens get deployed subway-wide.

Say you put doors on the Red Line Park St. level. Is that really going to help when the Green Line level is still blasting hot air, and DTX right down the tunnel doesn't have doors on one or both of its levels yet? It has to be treated systemically, which means the large startup costs get even larger.

 

[stick n move]

The points about cost are moot because I explained they do this to gain access to millions of people to advertise to. They already have done this in other countries and it was free and the systems work great. Its nothing new. The problem in NYC was the 24/7 schedule and non standard doors, but thats since been fixed with new versions. Theyre coming to the US and we will do this eventually so idk why we wouldnt try to do it now instead of later.

I dont understand that last paragraph. The green line would be blasting hot air inside the tunnel, separated from the station by the glass. If DTX right down the tunnel doesnt have doors yet it doesnt matter because literally the entire point is that the glass separates the air between different stations. It doesnt keep the tunnels themselves climate controlled, theyre separated. Thats the same as saying it wont work cuz the world is hot outside the tunnel. No matter whats down the tunnel doesnt matter because the doors separate the station from the tunnel, thats the entire point.

A green line train on the other side of this is blasting heat into the tunnel, which is open on both ends. Also if this is park st its separated from anything going on down at DTX by the glass. If one level of the same station isnt finished yet you just dont run hvac. They do this in other countries all the time the glass at the platforms and doors installed at entrances keeps the heated/cooled air within each individual station separately.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

The points about cost are moot because I explained they do this to gain access to millions of people to advertise to. They already have done this in other countries and it was free and the systems work great. Its nothing new. The problem in NYC was the 24/7 schedule and non standard doors, but thats since been fixed with new versions. Theyre coming to the US and we will do this eventually so idk why we wouldnt try to do it now instead of later.

Cost is most definitely not moot.

A platform door installation (4 sliding doors per car x 6 cars x 2 platforms = 48 mechanical doors per average station) is roughly equivalent to an above-average complexity station escalator installation in terms of moving parts and routine labor/inspection resources. Find one escalator in the whole City of Boston whose maintenance is entirely ad-supported. Because if platform screen doors can pay for themselves on ad revenue, so can the orders-of-magnitude more numerous vertical transportation installations throughout the land. Where are the free ad-supported escalators and elevators? Shouldn't they be everywhere by now??? Show us where they are. And what's so special about this particular ad revenue scheme that it covers all hardware costs & maint while a lifetime of ads in transit stations and on transit vehicles--including electronic ads--haven't been able to pay for any infrastructure installations by their lonesome???

That 'free as in beer' sales pitch is EXTREMELY problematic on its face. I'm sorry...if you're going to post a bunch of oversized pictures and say "This exists, somebody says it's free, therefore 'Duh!'" you're going to need to show some actual factual evidence that the numbers wash against overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I dont understand that last paragraph. The green line would be blasting hot air inside the tunnel, separated from the station by the glass. If DTX right down the tunnel doesnt have doors yet it doesnt matter because literally the entire point is that the glass separates the air between different stations. It doesnt keep the tunnels themselves climate controlled, theyre separated. Thats the same as saying it wont work cuz the world is hot outside the tunnel. No matter whats down the tunnel doesnt matter because the doors separate the station from the tunnel, thats the entire point.

And how exactly are you going to keep the tunnels hermetically sealed when the Green Line @ Park has an always-open ped grade crossing on the inbound side to reach the Winter St. concourse? That's one place where you practically cannot install screen doors. Now, if the other berths are barriered that should be good enough, but the open layout with the Winter St. concourse pretty much means you need to have all 7 other Park platform surfaces and all 4 DTX platform surfaces barriered to keep a lid on it. If you want to make any tangible temperature difference, as I said before those startup costs are indeed quite steep before they start to level out with additional scale.

Add to the costs the fact that most of Boston's stations are not configured in any standardized way...especially on the Green Line. Different ceiling heights, lots of false walls and false ceilings, curved platforms, narrow platforms that may get triggered for structural widening for ADA if they get touched for screen doors, spaghetti utilities underneath the platform edges where the door electronics would go, platforms that range from side to island to completely nonstandard (i.e. Park-GL). The barriers would have to be custom-cut to fit unique dimensions for each station, and insulation for temperature control customized for each station because of all those porous false walls/ceilings. Now, this is not a deal-breaker by any means because NYC is largely in the same boat and the most expensive component--the mechanical doors--is standardized. But if it wasn't already the height of naivety to assume that this could magically be made lock-stock free for life on the margins of an extremely volatile electronic ad industry...the incremental costs for installation in square-peg stations throw more dirt on that fantasy.

A green line train on the other side of this is blasting heat into the tunnel, which is open on both ends. Also if this is park st its separated from anything going on down at DTX by the glass. If one level of the same station isnt finished yet you just dont run hvac. They do this in other countries all the time the glass at the platforms and doors installed at entrances keeps the heated/cooled air within each individual station separately.

Stop right there. Don't run HVAC??? Do you even understand how the piston effect works? The exhaust is systemic. If the blowers are on at Kenmore, a portion of that air is going to get pushed all the way down the subway to Park. And vice versa. The hot air is constantly circulating, and it amplified during peak hours because of the number of trains simultaneously blowing air in connected tunnels. You can't just turn it off at one station and expect it to suddenly get cool; physics does not work that way.

If any other country does this, it's because they have the duct work installed in their tunnels to vent more heat before it reaches the stations. We do not, because HVAC on subway trains has only been in use since: 1969 partially/1994 fully for Red, 1976 partially/1985 fully for Green, 1980 for Blue, and 1981 for Orange. Ductwork on old construction is horrendously expensive, and a cost-killer for doing any serious climate control down below. It doesn't preclude platform doors here because they have multiple other advantages for safety and crowd control, but you are seriously seriously mistaken if you think systemic temperature control is an easy thing to implement. It's still going to be plenty hot behind the doors in any poorly-vented station because station ventilation is a whole separate project; it just might stay -1 less oppressive with doors blocking the direct hot air blast.



I'm not against platform screen doors...just this oversimplistic 'deus ex machina' notion that there somehow isn't a major cost burden attached because of magic ad revenues. HOW are these installations supposedly signed on for this moneymaking scheme covering their numbers? The existence of such purported installations isn't useful at all for the T unless we've got a clear picture of HOW these other examples are paying for major infrastructure installs with ad revenue in a way that no one else has been able to make ad sponsorship pay before.

 

[stick n move]

I linked a business insider article in the first post.

Korean company called TIS made an offer to Philadelphia as well.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/sictransitphiladelphia.org/2014/10/22/platform-screen-doors-now/amp/

The NYC L train 3rd avenue station is apparently installing them now for a pilot, I hadnt read this, so we wouldnt be first. Anyways Im just making a suggestion that this could be a great opportunity. These companies said they will do it and made the offer to a few cities. Neither you or I can say they definitely will or definitely cant, that would be on them we dont work for them. The offer has been made by a reputable company and reported on by reputible sources, thats all I can say. So my point was if we got in on that offer, at least some talks to hash out some details, whats the harm. Maybe we find out it is bullshit, cool then walk away. If its not thats a pretty big opportunity to pass up. Its inevitable these will become widespread here. Its just starting now so Im just saying if we got on early and for something like this, great. Theyre safety features, enhance cleanliness, and in some cases can help climate control. The #1 purpose is safety above all else though, the rest are a bonus if it can work. Im simply making a suggestion that an offer has been made by a Korean company to NYC, Philly, and itd be great if we could see if theyd be interested here as well. With regards to the stations you mention, if it cant work at a certain station then dont do it there, no big deal. They should still be able to do half screens though. Where it would work if they were there thatd be great.

 

[F-Line to Dudley]

I linked a business insider article in the first post.

Korean company called TIS made an offer to Philadelphia as well.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/sictransitphiladelphia.org/2014/10/22/platform-screen-doors-now/amp/

The NYC L train 3rd avenue station is apparently installing them now for a pilot, I hadnt read this, so we wouldnt be first. Anyways Im just making a suggestion that this could be a great opportunity. These companies said they will do it and made the offer to a few cities. Neither you or I can say they definitely will or definitely cant, that would be on them we dont work for them. The offer has been made by a reputable company and reported on by reputible sources, thats all I can say. So my point was if we got in on that offer, at least some talks to hash out some details, whats the harm. Maybe we find out it is bullshit, cool then walk away. If its not thats a pretty big opportunity to pass up. Its inevitable these will become widespread here. Its just starting now so Im just saying if we got on early and for something like this, great. Theyre safety features, enhance cleanliness, and in some cases can help climate control. The #1 purpose is safety above all else though, the rest are a bonus if it can work. Im simply making a suggestion that an offer has been made by a Korean company to NYC, Philly, and itd be great if we could see if theyd be interested here as well. With regards to the stations you mention, if it cant work at a certain station then dont do it there, no big deal. They should still be able to do half screens though. Where it would work if they were there thatd be great.

Then get your own talking points straight. You spent a ton of verbiage on this page talking about the 'free as in beer' installations are a slam-dunk thing without finding any examples of how those economics work in-practice, but now have pivoted to "Oh, it's just a suggestion." The hell it was; you've just made a total 180 on the talking point established in paragraph 2 of the thread-starter post! Yesterday it was no mere suggestion; you were claiming that cost was "moot" because unnamed reputable company "would" do a free installation here.

Sorry...you can't expect an argument as flimsy as that to pass scrutiny. Economics are the dilemma for moving them up on the T's priority list, as they carry a significant up-front cost. To boldly claim that ad revenues can underwrite the totality of the installations...when it doesn't do so on any similar type of infrastructure...requires attribution, because that's the be-all/end-all of getting them here sooner rather than much later. Don't change the subject suddenly to maybes and pilots when one can't produce any of that attribution and think that somehow credibly tables the money issue. That merely reeks of disingenuousness.

 

[JohnAKeith]

The issue for me isn't raw cost but believing there is an actual need, so I guess cost-benefit.

No one wants anyone to fall into the pit, but it seems to me it happens once or twice a year, in Boston, or perhaps it's more often but doesn't make Twitter or Universal Hub.

It seems overkill. Putting up an elbow-level barrier might be able to achieve the same success. With gaps that aren't as narrow as a car's doors but get people to understand (subconsciously?) that they need to stay behind it until the train is in the station.

Certainly, having people behind the yellow line would make drivers feel a lot more comfortable, so that should be a goal, too.

 

[Jahvon09]

What's happening with this? I wonder if the T still plans to install these on the platforms.

 

[Riverside]

^ Did the T ever have plans to install these on platforms?

 

[stefal]

No

 

[Jahvon09]

Yes they did. They had thought about it when there was a rash of incidents involving passengers waiting for trains, who were drunk & had fallen off the platforms, narrowly missing death from being run over by the trains, or getting electrocuted by the 3rd rail..

 

[Jahvon09]

Guess that I have to show some people better than I can tell them. But I don't think that they'll do it because it is probably too expensive to do. Hah!!

The T Wants to Make It Easier to Get on the Train

What if you didn't have to elbow six people to board?

www.bostonmagazine.com

 

[Rip]

Here's a link from 2018:

The platform doors are included on a draft list of projects the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is targeting for 2040, giving them similar priority status as a planned extension of the Silver Line to Everett and a pedestrian tunnel between the Downtown Crossing and State Street stations. While these projects aren’t guaranteed to happen, that they made it onto the agency’s official planning documents indicates the MBTA is serious about deploying them.

Given the terms "draft list" and "2040," I hardly think this is/was worth classifying as a done deal.

 

[Jahvon09]

Here's a link from 2018:



Given the terms "draft list" and "2040," I hardly think this is/was worth classifying as a done deal.

I can't read it because BG is blocking it, forcing people to sign up & PAY them to be able to read their stories online. No, I won't do it!!!

 

[shmessy]

I can't read it because BG is blocking it, forcing people to sign up & PAY them to be able to read their stories online. No, I won't do it!!!

Clear your browser history - - you'll get one free article read each time you do it. Simply repeat and you can read everything in the Globe.

 

[kmp1284]

I can't read it because BG is blocking it, forcing people to sign up & PAY them to be able to read their stories online. No, I won't do it!!!

They’re running a special for new subscribers … one dollar for six months.

 

[stefal]

Here's a link from 2018:
Given the terms "draft list" and "2040," I hardly think this is/was worth classifying as a done deal.

^^^ Draft Planning List =/= having plans to install

....And "indicates the MBTA is serious about deploying them" is quite an stretch/assumption for them to make. Anybody can make a planning list, and as noted, this one was even a draft list. It's a lot easier to draft a planning list than to actually plan the implementation of these things out. See upthread. With the state the MBTA is in, there are so many more pressing issues to tend to that you'd need about 4 more infrastructure bills worth of cash flowing into the MBTA's account for it to even be considered by the T for implementation. The coordination required to pull these off would be so deeply involved in almost all of the ongoing transformation projects that the T is currently pouring billions into, that it'd be a monumental waste of money to implement by 2040. If they did, they'd have to essentially run a "Transformation 2.0," removing and replacing a lot of what is currently being removed and replaced in "Transformation 1.0". Not ratting on the Transformation Teams either - they do good work; it's just if you want these by 2040 you should have been discussing them a much longer time ago when .

 

[Jahvon09]

Clear your browser history - - you'll get one free article read each time you do it. Simply repeat and you can read everything in the Globe.

I tried that. Nothing seems to work. They are so hellbent on trying to make people pay for something that used to be for free!!