Pols Hate Subway "Baby Back Ribs of Death"

City officials met with the police, fire department, and MTA to discuss subway evacuation plans yesterday. The FDNY said that it is "much more prepared today than we had been back in 2001" and cited special phone jacks firefighters can use in radio dead zones. But the City Council was skeptical. amNew York reports that transportation committee chairman Councilman John Liu wondered why there was so much focus on "extreme disaster situations" when track fires are much more common.

And then there was much vitriol for the high entrance/exit turnstiles (HEET, for short). Our readers have called HEETS "baby back ribs of death" as well as "meat grinders," and it seems that the City Council agrees. Well, Peter Vallone, at least, who as the council's public safety chairman said, "You decided to lock our riders in like third-class citizens on the Titantic," and claimed HEETs violate fire code.

The MTA says that there are emergency exits and 40 people per minute can exit through a HEET. Um, have they done user testing with HEETs, because those things are heavy and people have a hard time pushing through them, once they figure out which way to go.

And the photograph above is but a small excerpt of an amazing series of photographs by Bill Sullivan. Sullivan has taken many pictures of people entering through turnstiles - no Metrotarding seen, though.

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By Jen Chung in News on January 31, 2007 12:39 PM

Comments [rss]

jennifer

I tore my Achilles tendon when my foot got caught underneath the bottom rung of one of those things. 40 people/minute? No way. I still tense up every time i have to walk through one.

anonymass

I was kinda wondering the same thing, Nick.

But it did give rise to bernie goetz' woefully-politically-incorrect-nonetheless-guffaw-inducing comment.

nick

why, oh why, would you include a picture of regular turnstiles when the story is relating to HEETs?

Sarah

"High" probably refers to their heitht-- they are tall. "Tall entrance-exit turnstiles" (TEET) just doesn't have the same ring...

J

Goddamn, New Yorkers are ugly.

question

why are they called high exit/entrance turnstiles when they are larger and take more time than regular turnstiles? i understand where they are useful at entrances that can't have a booth for whatever reason, but let's not name them something that implies that they are efficient.

mike

That picture is great!

HEETs should be abolished.

Joe

"The MTA says... 40 people per minute can exit through a HEET".

That's not realistic in everyday use, let alone when people are panicking in an emergency.

rsh

I used to call them people eaters, many a year ago.

mmm

Dang, I thought this was going to be an article about Subway's BBQ "rib" sandwich. Because they are indeed "ribs" of death, just like McRib.

jg

why, exactly, are the HEETs so heavy and hard to turn? the old-style iron maiden exits are so much easier to turn ... I don't see the point of adding unnecessary difficulty. it seems like it's a grease issue more than a weight issue.

NY'er

We used to call them the "iron maidens"

David McCaffredy

If you look at any stories involving crowds that panic, there is always a situation where people are trampled near exits. If there was a fire or (God forbid) a terrorist attack on the subway, do you not think that there will be a rush toward the HEETs, which will quickly become locked up from panicked people? Sorry to be gruesome, but it's the truth.

jm

I'm deathly afraid of HEETs following an incident in Queens a few months ago. Entering the station through one of those deathtraps, the turnstile locked up as I was going through it, smashing my lower lip into my front teeth and filling my mouth with blood. Now I know how it feels to be one of those crazy people on the subway platform that everyone tries to avoid looking at!