A man was fatally struck by an E train in Queens Tuesday morning, police said.
The man had been walking between the cars, a spokesperson for the NYPD said, and fell onto the tracks as the E train was pulling into the station at 63 Drive-Rego Park station.
The incident occurred at 5:13 a.m. The man was pronounced dead at the scene, NYPD said.
The E, F, M and R lines were suspended or delayed for a period Tuesday morning as a result of the incident. Regular subway serviced resumed around 7:30 a.m., though the MTA warned that some lines may still see delays later in the morning as train congestion clears.
In 2016, 48 people were fatally struck by subways, DNAinfo previously reported, marking the lowest total in five years.
The MTA said in 2017 that it planned to test a program for which workers would install “a floor-to-ceiling barrier,” the New York Post previously reported, at an L train subway station in order to prevent people from jumping, falling or getting pushed onto the tracks.
This barrier would include platform doors that open only at the areas where subway doors open. Such mechanisms are already present in many European and Asian rail systems.
Preventing people from jumping or falling into the tracks, as well as preventing people’s belongings from falling onto the tracks, leads to less delays, according to Wired. In a 2008 article, Wired noted that a study by the Taipei Metro on the effectiveness of platform gates on a Paris Metro Line led to a 69 percent cut in train delays.
Installing platform doors can be costly, though. While the MTA did not disclose an estimated cost for the L train test, Wired reported that Taipei spend about $9 million retrofitting just two stations to install platform doors.
