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First, the Transit Authority bought Japanese subway cars with seats too small for Western tushes. Now, the TA plans to assign Tokyo-style train stuffers to New York's busiest subway platforms to make sure the doors close behind the 400th passenger in cars built to hold 200.
The train stuffers, formally known as platform conductors, are familiar to viewers of television documentaries about Japan, in which docile-looking passengers are crammed like corn on a cob into Tokyo's bullet trains.
The idea, both in Japan and New York, is to make the trains run faster by getting the doors opened and closed more quickly. One possible side effect in New York, where the subway crime rate is about 300 times that of Tokyo, would be small riots involving no more than two or three thousand people. But the TA official who came up with the Larry Gould, says delicacy will be used.
"We're probably going to go to some very civil methods here in New York," says Gould, who is in charge of making the trains run on time, the poor soul, and is determined that people will not grab a door as it is closing and delay the train.
"It's entirely healthy. Except for the one person who straggles down the stairs. They lose, but that's one person. Ninety-nine people win more elbow room and a faster trip."
About 200 train stuffers, formally known as platform conductors, will be assigned early next year, says Gould, to the Grand Central, Fulton Street, Brooklyn Bridge and 14th Street stops along the IRT Lexington line during the morning and evening rush hours. They also will work at three stations on the E and the F lines: Queens Plaza and Roosevelt Avenue during the morning and Lexington Avenue at night.
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