The cacophony in the subway this year lost one of its most grating sounds: the emergency exit alarm.
MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz told amNewYork that about 1,400 alarms were cut, “although there may be some stragglers left.”
The MTA started to put the blaring alarms on emergency doors in 2005 as a safety measure, but riders kept using them as another way to exit a station. The MTA later launched an information campaign warning passengers that the gates were for emergencies only and that riders could be arrested.
Earlier this year, MTA officials said 450 alarms had been disconnected in stations with booth agents over the course of 2013 on a case-by-case basis. This year, the MTA ramped up that effort to snip the alarm on emergency doors in unstaffed stations, as well.
