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Comment by jiveturkey | Hacker News Reader

force? why not have the attendant open the gate?

Most entrances do not have a human attendant nearby, and the general trend in NYC (and probably most places) has been to replace the humans with vending machines.

I don't think there are any stations that don't have at least one person working there at all times.

The worst case here is "software bug at 2AM means that you have to use the staffed entrance".

There are many, many unattended stations in the NYC Subway at night, if you leave lower Manhattan.

Which stations? I've been reading how the MTA tried to eliminate extra floating staff to cover agent's "lunch" breaks, and they got shut down by the state. Even in the middle of the night, someone has to be there for 30 minutes while the normal agent takes their lunch break.

Obviously, it's relatively recent that we got 24/7 service back, but I'm not counting the COVID service reductions.

All my subway experience is pre-COVID.

I dunno what the regs say, or what the MTA publicizes, but the reality is almost any station in Brooklyn, Queens, Harlem, etc. is going to be unsupervised in the late hours. Maybe there’s somebody lurking in an annex somewhere, but the ticket/info booth will be locked up and no MTA personnel, not even a janitor, will be visible. This was even the case for heavily trafficked stops like Bedford or Lorimer on the L.

OK, very interesting. I searched around for policies, and didn't find anything except people complaining about that 30 minute lack of coverage for "lunch". I assumed that if they flat-out had nobody in stations, there would be similar outrage.

I live in Brooklyn Heights and used to routinely work until 2 in the morning; there was always someone in the booth a High St. and Clark St. at that hour.

Not every station has an attendant, especially at 2AM. But even then, every gate is unlocked. At worst they just sound an alarm. But most of the time the alarms are turned off anyway.

fwiw, the gates are unlocked from inside the platform; you can't just yank it open if you're going into the subway.

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