By CEDAR ATTANASIO

Updated 6:09 PM UTC, October 5, 2025

NEW YORK (AP) — Ka’Von Wooden loved trains. The 15-year-old had an encyclopedic knowledge of New York City’s subway system and dreamed of becoming a train operator.

Instead, on a December morning in 2022, Ka’Von died after he climbed to the roof of a moving J train in Brooklyn and then fell onto the tracks as it headed onto the Williamsburg Bridge.

He is one of more than a dozen New Yorkers, many young boys, who have been killed or badly injured after falling off speeding trains. Other risks include being crushed between the train and tunnel walls and being electrocuted by high-voltage subway tracks. “Subway surfing” dates back a century but it has been fueled by social media.

Two girls found dead Saturday​

Early Saturday morning, New York City police found two girls dead — ages 12 and 13 — in what apparently was a subway surfing game that turned fatal, authorities said. Metropolitan Transportation Authority President Demetrius Crichlow said in a statement that “getting on top of a subway car isn’t ‘surfing’ — it’s suicide.”

Authorities have tried to address the problem with public awareness campaigns — including a new one featuring Grammy Award-winning rapper Cardi B — and by deploying drones to catch thrill-seekers in the act. But for some, a more fundamental question is not being addressed: Why are kids like Ka’Von able to climb on top of subway cars in the first place?

“When Ka’Von died ... literally two weeks later, another child died. And another one. That makes no sense,” his mother, Y’Vonda Maxwell, told The Associated Press, saying transit and law enforcement officials haven’t done enough. “Why should my child have not been the end?”

MTA says it is studying the issue​

Making trains harder to climb, and train surfers more easy to detect with cameras and sensors, could be part of the solution, some experts say. The MTA, which operates the subway system, has said it is studying the issue. But it has yet to report any broad new rollout of technology or physical barriers that might make it harder for people to get on top of trains.

In June, Crichlow told a news conference to introduce a new public awareness campaign that the MTA was experimenting with pieces of circular rubber tubing designed to prevent a person from being able to climb between two cars to the top of a train.

It was being piloted in between two cars to make sure it would fit into the tight spacing of the tunnels and that it wouldn’t break down or harm service or riders, he said.

“So far the equipment seems to be holding up,” he said.

Six deaths last year from subway surfing​

Six people died surfing subway trains in the city last year, up from five in 2023.

Tyesha Elcock, the MTA worker who operated the train Ka’Von rode the day he died, is among those who thinks more should be done to prevent deaths.

https://apnews.com/article/subway-surfing-nyc-deaths-tiktok-social-media-6f31491aebcf6d7952ed84a07651e4a4

Trains be killin chiljun, where da justice at?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5783581&forum_id=2],#49328271)