The MTA’s Transit and Bus Committee voted Monday to add more than 400 new R211 subway cars, including dozens of “open-gangway” cars, to its fleet of trains in NYC.
Transit authority officials said that by early 2025, at least two open-gangway trains, which allow passengers to walk between train cars, will launch on the G line through Brooklyn and Queens. Additionally, 355 traditional train cars with improved features will start rolling on the tracks by 2027.
“What is on the agenda today is actually hugely exciting for riders,” MTA chair and CEO Janno Lieber explained at the start of the committee meeting. “And, part of the fun here is that we are really going into — in a big way — the open-gangway business. It’s going to be OG on the G!”
Lieber said trains with an open gangway, similar to an articulated bus, will help alleviate overcrowding because they allow passengers to move between cars safely. Open gangway trains debuted earlier this year on the C line in Manhattan.
“Our friends in Greenpoint, people who ride the G and are passionate about transit, I know, are going to welcome getting new trains,” he said.
New railcars such as the R211 are a priority project in the MTA’s $68 billion capital plan for 2025-2029.
It is unclear if the new train procurement will be affected by future cuts or pauses in congestion pricing, which debuts on Jan. 5.
The purchase of the cars was based on pre-COVID costs, Lieber explained, before supply-chain issues increased price tags on a magnitude of goods and services around the country.
In January 2018, the MTA Board awarded Kawasaki Rail Car, Inc. a contract to design, build and deliver the new train stock to the city’s tracks and stations.
The R211s will replace all R44s on the Staten Island Railway and the current fleet of R46 subway cars, which have been in service on the A and C lines as well as the N, Q, R and W line for decades. The procurement allows the MTA to begin replacement of the R68s, which entered service in the mid-1980s and primarily operate on the B, D, N and W.
The R211 features security cameras in every car, more accessible seating, brighter lights, clearer signage, and 58-inch-wide door openings, eight inches wider than the standard door openings on the agency’s existing cars.
“These new train cars make the world of difference for transit riders, in both reliability and the customer experience with better amenities for passengers,” NYC Transit president Demetrius Crichlow said.
The choo-choo news has delighted straphangers and train buffs who attended the committee meeting.
Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA (PCAC), called Monday’s announcemed a “holiday gift” for passengers.
“The new subway cars that will soon be rolling in will help modernize our aging fleet, and though we’ll miss the conversational seating, we will welcome the technology and mechanical improvements,” she said.
The new RT11 trains will come installed with communications-based train control (CBTC), which is set to modernize the subways 1030s-era analog system with wireless technology that will allow more trains on the tracks and fewer delays.
