IT’S COME TO THIS: New York and Chicago look at “platform doors” to stop subway attacks.

The New York subway began in 1904. As Jazz Shaw writes, “Part of me wonders why nobody thought of this before now. I’ve used the subway in Gotham many times, but I don’t think it ever occurred to me to ask why the rail platforms just suddenly end with an abrupt drop down onto the tracks with no sort of safety barrier in the way. I suppose people just assumed that this is how it’s always been and that must be for a reason…The danger levels have been seriously amplified by the proliferation of mentally unstable homeless people and gang activity. The very idea of randomly shoving someone down into the path of an oncoming train should have always been unthinkable for any sane, rational person. But the percentage of sane, rational people hanging out in the metro systems around our country clearly seems to be decreasing.”