NY's MTA rolls out deadbolts on some subway trains in effort to secure cabins

Evan Simko-Bednarski, New York Daily News on Oct 20, 2025

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NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been installing deadbolt locks on subway cars of the No. 7 line in an effort to reinforce the control cabs against break-ins, the Daily News has learned.

The locks — high-security deadbolts manufactured by Medeco — have started appearing on cab doors across the line in recent months, as observed by The News.

The locks, which require a more complex key than the typical apartment deadbolt, sit just above the built-in lock on the train cars where it’s installed.

Sources with knowledge of the installation said the locks are part of a pilot program to secure the doors against intruders, part of a wide-ranging effort to curb train break-ins, joyrides and subway surfing.

So far, the locks only appear to have been installed on a portion of the R188 train cars in use on the No. 7 line, and don’t seem to have been installed on any other trains.

Transit officials have been promising to re-key the doors amid a proliferation of black-market master keys for years.

In January 2024, when asked about an incident in which two teens broke into a train in a yard in Queens and managed to move it several feet, then-NYC Transit President Richard Davey said his agency had already been looking into changing the locks.

“We have already, prior to this incident, looked at changing the locks on our conductor cabs and our trains,” he told reporters at the time. “We have seen an uptick in people trying to illegally sell some of these keys online, for example — we’re addressing that.”

But, nearly two years out, the MTA has kept mum about it’s apparent re-keying effort.

Asked about the ongoing availability of black-market subway keys last week, NYC Transit President Demetrius Crichlow told reporters his agency was increasing the number of surveillance cameras throughout the system and coordinating with the NYPD to make sure people who break into train cabs are caught — but did not comment on the re-keying efforts on the No. 7 train.

Multiple MTA spokespeople declined to answer questions about the new locks — how many had been installed, if other lines would be next, and when the installation was expected to be complete.

It remains unclear how many new locks have been installed. Of the 24 control-cab doors observed by The News, half of them were equipped with the new lock. Often, the same train would have new locks on some cab doors, but no new locks on others. There are 184 control-cab equipped cars in the R188 fleet.

Cab break-ins have been a persistent problem across a number of train lines in recent years, with young trespassers using purloined keys to take subway trains on high-speed joyrides.

Sources also tell The News that the unoccupied rear cab is a favorite point of access for some subway surfers — a recurring, deadly problem on the No. 7.

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