A recent attack at a New York City subway station has threatened the progress the transit system has made since the height of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Familiar questions about the safety of the transit system have resurfaced. The attack has also renewed calls for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to install additional protective features like platform barriers that could help keep transit riders from falling onto the tracks.

Michiko Ueda-Ballmer, associate professor of public administration and international affairs, has studied the efficacy of platform barriers in preventing people from getting on railway tracks in Japan and says the authority should install at least small metal gates to make the system safer.

“It’s better than nothing,” Ueda says. “If there’s somebody pushed, just by accident, and if you have metal bars, I think that would definitely help.” 

Read more in the New York Times article, “Shoving Attack Renews Calls for M.T.A. to Make Subway Platforms Safer.”