Death of 2 teen boys underscores danger of ‘subway surfing’ in New York

NEW YORK – Ka’Von Wooden spent years dreaming that one day he would operate a subway train, a map of the No.6 line hanging on his wall and fuelling that dream.

His mother, Ms Y’Vonda Maxwell, said the boy would picture himself in a conductor’s booth, hurtling through the subway tunnels.

Ka’Von, a shy 15-year-old from the Bronx with autism, was “enthralled by trains,” Ms Maxwell said. “That’s all he ate, thought about, talked about.”

One morning in December last year, Ka’Von climbed atop a Manhattan-bound J train. As the moving train approached the Delancey Street/Essex Street station, Ka’Von tumbled off and struck the third rail, police said, suffering a severe head injury. He was pronounced dead at the scene by emergency responders, police added.

Ka’Von’s death is another tragedy tied to “subway surfing”, a high-stakes stunt that involves riding on the top of train cars. On Monday evening, Zachery Nazaro, a 15-year-old boy from Manhattan, was pronounced dead after hitting his head on an object while surfing on top of a Manhattan-bound J train and then falling between the cars, the New York Police Department said.

The number of people riding outside trains – which can include riding on top of cars, in between them, and hanging on the sides – has more than quadrupled. There were 928 instances in 2022, up from 206 in 2021 and from 490 in 2019, before ridership declined during the pandemic, according to the latest statistics provided by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the state agency that runs New York City’s transit network.

The MTA does not isolate its data for people riding on top of trains, which officials say is a small percentage. Mr Richard Davey, president of New York City Transit, the division of the MTA that runs the city’s subway and buses, said he believes the vast majority of incidents occur when people ride between cars.

“We cannot stress enough how dangerous it is to ride on the outside of trains. Our hearts go out to loved ones at yet another tragic time,” Mr Davey said in a statement. “We implore other families to speak with their children on the real dangers of what can seem like a thrill but is too often deadly.”

Mayor Eric Adams said on Tuesday that the circumstances of the boy’s death were “traumatic” and that the city would do more to educate young people about the dangers of subway surfing. “You’re young. You do things that are foolish,” he said, adding, “this was really a terrible, tragic incident of this young man.”

The phenomenon appears to be largely unique to New York, where the subway system is vast and a reflection of the city’s fast-paced culture. The Chicago Transit Authority typically only receives a few reports of surfing every year, while the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority tallied five such incidents over the past two years, according to representatives for the transit systems.

Riding outside train cars is illegal, but the police department does not track arrests related to riding on the outside of a train. Mr Davey said the authority is trying to spread the message of the dangers of subway surfing, while the Police Department said in a statement that an increased police presence in stations and on platforms – New York Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams flooded the system with more officers in the fall – could “deter violations of the transit rules and regulations including riding on the exterior of train cars”.

In interviews with five teenage boys who have ridden on the outside of subways, The New York Times learned that participants, who tend to be teenage boys, according to interviews and social media videos, typically enter a train just like most passengers. Once the train pulls out of a station, surfers slip between cars and scramble up to the top. The boys say they typically opt for elevated train lines, where they can feel the wind and see the city above ground.

Jon, a 15-year-old boy from Queens who asked to be identified by only his first name out of concern for potential legal repercussions, said he got caught surfing on the back of the No. 5 train by the police in early 2022, but he got off with a warning.

Thrill-seekers riding atop subway cars is hardly novel; a 1991 article in the Times noted an anecdotal increase at the time. But in an era where social media is so central to status, teenagers are incentivised to post more daring and eye-catching content, experts said, and videos of young subway surfers have gone viral on TikTok.

“To get views and likes, and for people to interact with your posts, you have to do something crazier,” said Prof Kim Gorgens, a psychology professor at the University of Denver.

“And to gain notoriety with your friends, you have to do something bigger and crazier. We’ve one-upped each other into a really perilous place.”

After the Times requested comment from TikTok on its policies regarding train surfing videos and content that might encourage young people to do dangerous things, several videos of teenagers train surfing in New York disappeared from the platform.

“The safety and well-being of our users is a top priority at TikTok. As we make clear in our community guidelines, we do not allow content that encourages, promotes or glorifies dangerous challenges that might lead to injury,” a TikTok spokesman said in a statement. NYTIMES