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 NYC subway fare jumpers easily beat anti-theft ‘fins’ as MTA spends
$7.3M to bring program to nearly every station
By Khristina Narizhnaya,
Georgett Roberts and
Haley Brown	
Published Dec. 18, 2025, 6:55 p.m. ET

Stand clear of the closing snorts!

The MTA will dish out $7.3 million to expand its anti-fare evasion
gadgets to nearly every subway station in the five boroughs — even
though rule breakers have been laughing their way right past them.

The MTA signed off this week on a deal with Boyce Technologies to add
more fare‑evasion “sleeves” and vertical “fins” at subway entrances,
ultimately bringing the hardware to 456 of the city’s 472 stations by
January.
The jagged metal "fins" 4
The jagged metal “fins” are designed to stop people from jumping or
using the turnstile housing as a launch point. Christopher Sadowski

But straphangers doing the right thing say jumpers are easily bypassing
the jagged metal “fins” that are designed to stop people from jumping or
using the turnstile housing as a launch point. And the thieves are
getting by the “sleeves” that are fitted over the arm of the turnstile
to prevent riders from sneaking through.

“Homies are coming through the whole night,” musician Kevin Lightfoot
told a Post reporter after paying his fare.
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Lightfoot, 59, said the MTA is wasting taxpayer money on barriers that
don’t work.

“Put something in the bottom so that they can’t go under it — but then
they gonna hop over,” he said.

Roughly 2,900 of the sleeves and fins have already been slapped onto
entrances at 327 stations, with the remaining 129 stations expected to
be completed by January, according to the MTA.
sleeve 4
The “sleeves” are fitted over the arm of the turnstile to prevent riders
from sneaking through. LP Media

Yet on Thursday, Post reporters still caught many people effortlessly
dodging the fare.

At the Jamaica Center station in Queens, one man coolly vaulted over the
fortified turnstile, barely glancing at his hands as he planted them
just so to avoid getting pricked by the spikes.

A woman avoided the drama altogether and simply crawled under the turnstile.

Within a two-hour span at the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall subway stop, two
men jumped over the turnstile, one man simply stepped over the turnstile
and three others crawled under the turnstile. Additionally, one teen
followed his card-using friend through while two other men were able to
walk through the emergency door left often by an exiting rider.
A man handily sails over the MTA's effort to block fare evaders from
skipping out on the fare Thursday. 4
A man handily sails over the MTA’s effort to block fare evaders
Thursday. NY Post/Georgett Roberts

At Union Square, in a little over an hour, six people went over and
under at different entrances all of which had the fins and sleeves —
plus gate guards.

“The guys they have outside, they’re just getting a free paycheck,”
Lightfoot said. “If anything happens, he can’t stop it.”

An MTA worker at a different station who declined to give their name for
fear of losing their job told a Post reporter employees see people
thwart the new devices “all the time.”

Yet another MTA unnamed worker told the Post the same thing.

“Oh they’re going over, and we’ve got the spikes here. Nothing will stop
them,” the worker said.

When the MTA first started piloting the shark-toothed apparatus in
February, a Post reporter also caught several people easily defeating
the transit agency’s effort.

The MTA said it hired a consultant to design and test the fins and
sleeves, but did not respond to an inquiry from The Post regarding the
nature of that testing.
A subway rider defeats MTA's anti-fare evasion effort by crawling under
the turnstile. 4
A subway rider defeats MTA’s anti-fare evasion effort by crawling under
the turnstile Thursday. NY Post/Georgett Roberts

Brie, an aesthetician who lives in the Bronx, said it was not worth the
spending even though it’s a fraction of the MTA’s $21 billion operating
budget.

“They’re gonna do whatever they want to do. I’ve seen many people doing
it,” Brie said. “Like they will go over, under, without any repercussion.”

The MTA also plans to drop a whopping $1.1 billion testing new “modern
fare gates” explicitly aimed at reducing fare evasion.

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