Editor’s note: Century old subway tech still works, but is it worth the anxiety?

An ancient subway technology known as “gap fillers” on the platforms of the Nos. 4, 5 and 6 lines of the Union Square subway station have always made me nervous. These loud, long, steampunk-like talons extend to meet the doors of subway cars where the curved platform doesn’t align with the train. They work, but they’re not exactly reassuring, as the only barrier preventing riders from getting caught in the gaps, like when a 37-year-old rider was killed after being caught between the train and the platform at a Brooklyn station in 2022.

The 110-year-old gap fillers came up in a class-action lawsuit filed by New York Lawyers for the Public Interest on behalf of New Yorkers with disabilities, which seeks to have the agency close all gaps between platforms and trains. Crain’s New York Business reported last week that New York City might also be pulled into the legal action because it leases the subways to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Crain’s noted that while the MTA uses gap fillers, other systems like New Jersey, Chicago and Boston use bridge plates to close gaps. Congestion pricing could have provided funding to replace gap fillers with more modern alternatives. The MTA declined to comment because of the ongoing litigation. So the gap fillers remain the agency’s solution to a potentially deadly problem. I discovered while reporting for this note that I’m not alone in my anxiety this tech causes. “If there’s some sort of malfunction, and nobody knows about it, somebody’s going down into the tracks,” said Alfredo Lopez, a 57-year-old Bronx subway rider just before crossing the gap fillers onto a No. 4 train going downtown at the Union Square station.