Nearly every subway turnstile in New York City will soon be fitted with metal shark-like fins and plastic paddles designed to make it harder to skip the fare, MTA officials announced during a meeting on Monday.
The equipment’s already been installed at 327 of the city’s 472 subway stations — and will be added to another 129 by the end of next month, according to documents published by the transit agency. The MTA plans to spend $7.3 million on the new features, a relatively small sum compared to the $1.1 billion it’s budgeted to install entirely redesigned sets of fare gates at 150 stations through its five-year construction plan.
Transit officials reported that the low-cost barriers have reduced fare evasion by 60% at the stations where they’ve been installed…