MTA Disables Useless Subway Emergency Exit Alarms
(via flickr user NYC Subway Rider)
The deafening alarm sound that you hear every time someone pushes through the emergency exit portion of the New York City subway turnstile is about to be extinct. The MTA announced that, after nine years of having an alarm attached to the door, they’re getting rid of the alarms. Why? Because the alarms, installed to help curb fare jumpers, actually were doing nothing except for damaging straphangers’ hearing.
“Our customers have been quite clear in displaying their annoyance and letting us know that the alarms really were the number one annoyance for them as they travel through the system,” MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz told WNYC. Getting rid of them was “an easy decision to make.”
The alarms have almost all been systematically disabled, starting with the ones closest to station agents and continuing to other areas of the station. That’s a pretty good present from the MTA to close out 2014. Good riddance to useless racket.
