MTA unveils subway car of the future, and it’s a entire lot roomier
Subway riders could get ease from sardine-can conditions in a fresh “open” model of train car the MTA wants to test drive.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority released a rendering of an open gangway train design — a style used in Toronto, London and Paris that lets passengers spread out on the total length of a train, instead of cramming themselves into individual cars.
The open style of train car could boost passenger capacity around 10%, according to transit experts.
The MTA released a rendering of an open gangway train design — a style used in Toronto, London and Paris that lets passengers spread out on the utter length of a train.
The MTA plans to spend $52 million on ten open gangway cars for two full-length trains. The test run is still years away, with the prototypes expected to be delivered in two thousand twenty the earliest.
“We’re using this project as an chance to just test that technology and see if it works for Fresh York,” NYC Transit’s acting subways chief Wynton Habersham said during an MTA board meeting.
The trains will be built as part of the MTA’s $Two.7 billion purchase of fresh nine hundred forty R-211 model train cars to substitute 40-year-old clunkers on A and F lines.
The purchase is included in the agency’s $29 billion capital plan still pending in Albany.
Commuters crowd an L subway train, Monday, Jan. 25, 2016, in the Brooklyn borough of Fresh York. East Coast residents who made the most of a paralyzing weekend blizzard trudged into the workweek Monday amid slimy roads, spotty transit service and mounds of snow that buried cars and blocked sidewalk entrances. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Commuters, upper right, attempt to shove onto a crowded L subway train, Monday, Jan. 25, 2016, in the Brooklyn borough of Fresh York. East Coast residents who made the most of a paralyzing weekend blizzard trudged into the workweek Monday amid lubricious roads, spotty transit service and mounds of snow that buried cars and blocked sidewalk entrances. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Commuters crowd an L subway train, Monday, Jan. 25, 2016, in Brooklyn after the paralyzing weekend blizzard.
The modern trains will be tooled with WiFi and charging stations.
With the design phase underway, the MTA plans to award a contract in early 2017.
Subway riders could get ease from sardine-can conditions in the fresh “open” model of train car the MTA wants to test drive.
The MTA embarked considering an open gangway style of subway car in a 20-year assessment plan from 2013, telling the design would “maximize carrying capacity” and “allow passengers to budge to less-crowded areas of the train, balancing loading and unloading times at all doors.”
Andrew Albert, an MTA board member, asked agency officials about some of the unintended consequences of an open train car design.
“It’s fine benefit to salespersons, performers and others,” he said, “but I’m just wondering what you think it is for riders.”