Installing London- and Paris-style platform doors in New York City's subway system could not only help manage subway overcrowding and make platforms safer, but also provide a badly needed revenue stream, said one Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member.
"The Brits did it and made money off it," Charles Moerdler, a board member for six years and a partner in law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP, told reporters during an MTA committee meeting on Nov. 17. "They have advertising on the panels. You can see them on the walls on the other side. They have holograms in Paris, in just about every station.
"You see them in Orlando, Miami, San Francisco. It's not an infrequent event. Take a look at the Times Square shuttle," he said of the dedicated S line that shuttles between Times Square, with platform doors, and Grand Central.
Moerdler, whom former Gov. David Paterson appointed to the board in December 2010, has spoken frequently at meetings about platform overcrowding. Platform safety made headlines after a man in the Highbridge section of the Bronx was apparently pushed to his death on a D train platform on Nov. 16.
The MTA one of the largest issuers in the municipal marketplace with about $34.4 billion of debt, is looking to fill a gap of at least $15.2 billion in its four-year, $32 billion capital program.
Carmen Bianco, president of the MTA's New York City Transit unit, said the varying train and station designs would make implementation complex.
"You have to look at the whole package," he said. "We have 468 stations right now. We have to understand what we're up against and we have to understand how we would plan it."
