http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/18/nyregion/as-crime-on-the-subway-comes-down-signs-from-an-earlier-era-do-too.html 2016-10-17 17:36:53 As Crime on the Subway Comes Down, Signs From an Earlier Era Do Too Installed in the 1980s as a low-cost safety measure, placards designating certain areas of stations for waiting for late night trains are gradually being removed. === The “Don’t Honk” signs Now, another directive posted in the city’s public spaces is being removed: where to wait for a subway train late at night. That such instructions even exist is news to many. “I never even noticed it,” Eddie Rodriguez said as he stared at a large yellow sign that read “Off hours waiting area” in the Astor Place subway station in Manhattan. “What does that even mean?” he asked. Mr. Rodriguez, a New York native who rides the subway every day, is not alone in his confusion. Although still valued by some, the designated waiting areas — well-lit spots within eyeshot of a station agent or next to an intercom — are unknown to many riders today. They will soon become even more obscure. Citing rising nighttime ridership and falling crime, the Kevin Ortiz, a spokesman for the authority, said a number of high-tech safety features had effectively supplanted the purpose of the waiting areas, including thousands of security cameras and “ Mr. Ortiz said the authority did not know when the last of the signs would be removed, or how many waiting areas remain. “Some stations still have the signage but we don’t have a running tally,” he said. Christopher Hurley breezed past one of the signs at the 14th Street and Sixth Avenue station in Manhattan on a recent Sunday night, as did seemingly everyone else who passed through the turnstiles. Mr. Hurley said he could not even imagine the point of the area, which was on the mezzanine level, a staircase away from the trains. “Who’s waiting there?” he asked. Pelumi Adegawa, for one. Ms. Adegawa said she regularly sat in designated waiting zones, especially at the Grant Avenue station in Brooklyn, near where she lives. “It’s cooler up there” in the summer, she said. “And you don’t have to stare at the rats.” Ms. Adegawa said the areas often felt safer than other parts of the station. “As a female, going home late, safety is a big issue for me,” she said. Whether the waiting zones have yielded quantifiable safety benefits is unclear. Vincent Coogan, executive officer of the Police Department’s Transit Bureau, said he did not know whether the areas had been effective in deterring crime. But he noted that crime on public transit had dropped in recent decades. The transit system experienced an Oscar Israelowitz, the author of a “It’s the placebo effect,” he said. “You feel secure because it says you’re in the safety zone.” The psychological comfort may be all that some riders need. Christine Zhang was unaware that she was standing in the off-hours waiting area at the Astor Place station on a recent night. She did not seek out such areas, she said, but thought they might provide peace of mind to tourists and newcomers to the city. “Maybe they have that perception that New York is dangerous and need that sense of security,” Ms. Zhang said. Guidebooks The New York City Transit Authority, which operates city buses and subways, began installing the waiting-area signs in the “When I first went there, it was really almost frightening to ride the subway,” said David Gunn, the transit authority’s president from 1984 to 1990. Train breakdowns, graffiti, fare evasion and even cars catching fire were chronic problems at the time, Mr. Gunn said, on top of persistently high levels of crime in subway cars and stations. “The whole atmosphere was so out of control,” Mr. Gunn said. “It was intimidating.” Establishing the waiting areas cost around But the agency began to remove the signs in the 1990s, Mr. Ortiz said. To those with deep roots in the city, the slow extinction of the waiting areas reflects just how far the transit system has come since then. “It’s a sign of the times, I guess,” said Mr. Rodriguez, who recalled his terror at riding the subway as a child. “It has gotten better.”