Damn Strollers

The Daily News reports that the new emergency exits in the subway — equipped with “panic bars” — are being used extensively by people pushing baby strollers:

Straphangers with strollers and packages are pushing “panic bars” to open gates because they sometimes offer the quickest and easiest route to the street, transit officials said yesterday.

A prime location for such a maneuver is the Bridge and Willoughby Sts. exit of the Lawrence St. station in downtown Brooklyn. A stroller-pushing rider is confronted with three options: try to squeeze through a narrow, ceiling-to-floor turnstile; walk more than 200 feet to the staffed token booth and ask a clerk to be let out, or crash through one of two marked emergency gates.

Loud alarms sound when the gates are opened, which at Lawrence St. happens about 25 times a week, authorities said. But the piercing alerts end in seconds, when the gates close.

“I have no idea who is using them,” a clerk in the Lawrence St. booth said. “I can’t see back there. The alarm goes off, then it stops.”

About 20 stations have the emergency gates. The goal is to have every exit in the 468-station system rigged with at least one panic bar by the end of the year, said Gricelda Cespedes, a manager in the Transit Authority’s stations department. The TA is drafting instructions for clerks on whom to notify if an alarm goes off.

An aside: why does Brooklyn seem to get all the cool new subway stuff?