Transit officers are hoping a brand new advert marketing campaign, a brand new spokesman and some subway automobile modifications will proceed to drive down subway browsing deaths.
The MTA relaunched its “Ride Inside, Stay Alive” anti-subway browsing marketing campaign on Wednesday, this time with the assist of Queens-born skilled BMX bike rider Nigel Sylvester.
Like final 12 months’s initiative, the push entails a collection of recorded subway bulletins — by Sylvester, in addition to by New York Metropolis schoolchildren — in regards to the risks of driving on the surface of a subway practice, plus a collection of digital posters displayed on subway and platform screens.
MTA officers Shanifa Rieara and Demetrius Crichlow stand close to the doorway to Queens Plaza with BMX rider and anti-subway browsing spokesman Nigel Sylvester. (Evan Simko-Bednarski for New York Every day Information)
“Subway surfing is going to get you injured or killed,” Sylvester says in a subway announcement recorded for the marketing campaign. “It’s pretty simple: Don’t do it.”
“I believe I can relate to these kids,” Sylvester mentioned Wednesday, when requested how an expert thrill seeker is usually a function mannequin for security. “Kids can relate to me, and we can have a meaningful dialogue.”
Subway browsing has been a persistent, lethal downside, with six deaths attributed to the observe final 12 months and 5 deaths in 2023. One other 25 folks have been injured whereas driving outdoors of trains in these two years.
The overwhelming majority of subway surfers are youngsters.
Thus far this 12 months, one individual — a 13-year-old boy — has died from subway browsing, succumbing to his accidents days after falling off the highest of a No. 7 practice in Queens.
Advertisements from the MTA’s new marketing campaign in opposition to subway browsing on the Queens Plaza E, M and R station. (Evan Simko-Bednarski for New York Every day Information)
“As a father of three children, I can’t imagine seeing my child on [top of] a train as that train barrels down the track,” mentioned NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow.
“I was a manager here on the [No.] 7 line,” Crichlow continued. “I’ve seen on a first-hand basis what happens to the children when they come into contact with a fixed, immovable object.”
The revamped marketing campaign focuses not simply on the hazards of subway browsing, however on the toll that youngsters’ deaths tackle surviving households and pals.
A 3-display advert unveiled Wednesday tells the fictionalized story, in comic-book type, of a 12-year-old who falls from a practice, and the horrors his dying inflicts on his pals, his mom and the EMT who responds to the scene.
Advertisements from the MTA’s new marketing campaign in opposition to subway browsing on the Queens Plaza E, M and R station. (Evan Simko-Bednarski for New York Every day Information)
The MTA’s chief buyer officer, Shanifa Rieara, mentioned the marketing campaign concerned 43 such advertisements that will be rolled out over the subsequent 12 months.
Different bulletins centered on the senselessness of a subway browsing dying.
“The rush from subway surfing is fleeting — the consequences are real,” Ahana Chandra, a scholar at Stuyvesant Excessive College, mentioned in her subway announcement. “Six people died subway surfing last year, and for what?”
The advert marketing campaign comes amid a collection of different efforts to curb thrill-seeking subway deaths.
The transit company is within the early phases of testing add-on obstacles to coach automobiles in an effort make it tougher to climb as much as the roof.
Rieara additionally famous that the MTA’s efforts to get subway-surfing movies taken down from social media continues. Thus far this 12 months, she mentioned, roughly 1,800 such movies have been eliminated by platforms like X, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
Initially Printed: June 11, 2025 at 6:07 PM EDT
