New York (AP) – Ka’von Wooden loved trains. The 15 -year -old had an encyclopedic knowledge of the New York City Metro system and dreamed of becoming a trains operator.
On the other hand, on a December morning, 2022, Ka’von died after he went up to the ceiling of a train J in Brooklyn and then fell on the tracks while heading to the Williamsburg bridge.
It is one of the more than a dozen New Yorkers, many young people, who have been killed or seriously injured after falling from trains at full speed. Other risks include being crushed between the train and the walls of the tunnel and being electrocuted by high voltage subway tracks. The “subway surfing” dates back to a century, but has been fed by social networks.
Two dead girls on Saturday
Early on Saturday morning, New York City Police found two dead girls, 12 years and 13, in what was apparently a subway surfing that turned out to be fatal, authorities said. The president of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Demetrius Crichlow, said in a statement that “becoming aware of a metropolitous car is not” navigating “, it is suicide.”
The authorities have tried to address the problem with public awareness campaigns, including a new one with the rapper winning of the Grammy Cardi B award, and deploying drones to catch emotions of emotions in the act. But for some, a more fundamental question is not being addressed: why can children like Ka’von upload on the subway cars in the first place?
“When Ka’von died … literally two weeks later, another child died. And another. That makes no sense,” said his mother, and’vonda Maxwell, to The Associated Press, saying that traffic and officials responsible for enforcing the law have not done enough. “Why should my son have been the end?”
MTA says he is studying the problem
Make trains more difficult to climb, and trains of trains easier to detect with cameras and sensors, could be part of the solution, some experts say. The MTA, which operates the Metro system, has said that it is studying the problem. But he has not yet informed any new technology deployment or physical barriers that may make people difficult for people to be aware.
In June, Crichlow told a press conference to enter a new public awareness campaign that the MTA was experimenting with circular rubber pieces designed to prevent a person from climbing between two cars to the top of a train.
He was piloting between two cars to make sure that he would fit in the tight space of the tunnels and that the service or cyclists would not be broken down or damaged, he said.
“Until now, the team seems to be holding,” he said.
Six deaths so far this year from subway surfing
Six people died surfing of subway trains in the city last year, compared to five in 2023.
Tyesha Elcock, the MTA worker who operated the Ka’von train rode the day he died, is among those who think that more should be done to prevent deaths.
The first problem signal that day was when the emergency brake of the train came into progress, he said.
Elcock discovered Ka’von’s body between the sept and eighth cars of the train. A group of sad face teenagers on the train made clear what had happened. “Did everyone leave your friend there?” She asked them.
Elcock said another operator traveling in the opposite direction saw Ka’von on the train roof and reported it on radio. Due to the irregular radio service, he said, he did not receive the warning.
But she thinks that an even simpler solution could have saved Ka’von’s life: block the doors at the ends of the subway cars. That would cut access to narrow spaces between train wagons where subway surfers use grip to raise the ceiling.
“Block it when we are in service so that people cannot go up and be at the top of the train,” said Elcock.
The leaders of the MTA have said that they seek possible ways to prevent subway surfing, including engineering solutions, but the agency refused to make available any of its security experts for an interview.
In 2023, Richard Davey, then bus chief and meters for the MTA, said the officials were “weighing” the option to block the doors between cars, which is now done only in a handful of trains of the 1980s. But he said that blocking the doors “brings their own risk.” Some New Yorkers have complained that blocking the halls between the train cars could prevent them from escaping another part of the train during an emergency.
Under interrogation of the members and reporters of the City Council last year, MTA officials ruled out some other physical interventions, including the construction of more barriers to avoid access to the tracks or put covers on the holes between the wagons to prevent possible surfers from rising.
“Listen, you must be able to work at the top of a train car,” said MTA CEO, Janno Lieber, at a press conference, adding that you can’t “cover it with spike wire.”
MTA asks social media companies to help stop the trend
The MTA has asked social media companies to eliminate glamorizing subway surfing videos, and reported in June that, in 2025, more than 1,800 videos had been eliminated.
Public service advertisements are also promoted to tell people to “mount inside, Stay Alive”, in voices of local adolescents and, with the schools of the city, launched a thematic campaign of comics last summer designed to show the dangers of surfing and impact on the subway in loved ones.
More than 300,000 children at New York City use the subway to get and leave school every day.
New York Police reported that the arrests of alleged subway surfers increased to 229 last year, compared to 135 the previous year. Most were children, with an average age of around 14 years, according to the police. The youngest was 9 years old.
Branislav Dimitrijevic, engineering professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, said modernization trains to avoid access to the roof would be expensive.
“There are so many transport stories where things can be fixed, but they cost a lot of money. And then you ask the public: ‘Are you willing to (pay) to fix it? But your taxes would increase greatly.’ And people say ‘no’,” said Dimitrijevic.
Dimitrijevic suggested that the MTA could install cameras and use artificial intelligence to detect cyclists who try to climb a train. Andrew Albert, a member not vote of the MTA Board, said he has asked the agency about the plausibility of physical sensors but has not received an answer.
The New York Police has patrolled popular surf routes with field response equipment and drones, informing that they had used them to do 200 bailouts, mainly adolescents. But the missions cannot be everywhere at the same time. They also say they make home visits to the houses of the subway surfers who have identified.
Trains in other cities, such as Hong Kong and Dubai, are not easily scalable. They have simplified bodies, lack handles abroad and do not open between cars.
Some rail systems have resorted to extreme tactics to prevent people from passing over trains. In Indonesia, railway officials once installed hanging metal tails to try to deter passengers from traveling on train cars to avoid overcrowding. They also tried to spray riders with red paint and hit them with brooms.
The MTA bought some new subway cars that do not have outdoor holes exploited by Subway Surfers, but represent only one splinter of the number currently in service, and will not be implemented in popular lines to navigate in the short term.
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Associated Press Reporter Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.
(Tagstotranslate) Surfing Surfing (T) New York