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Nearly 50 people were struck and killed by subway trains or found dead on the tracks during the first eight months of 2021, new MTA records show.
Forty-two deaths were blamed on what the agency calls “collisions” with trains, and five others were people who may have fallen on the tracks or come into contact with the electrified third rail in this time span, the latest available data show, the agency said.
The number of deaths was one less than during the same period in 2020.
But suicides rose 60 percent in the first eight months of 2021 to 16, compared with 10 during the same time the previous year.
Eight people fell from between cars from January through August 2021, up from six in the same period in 2020, although the data does not show how many of them may have died.
The encounters do not include a half-dozen high-profile, although not deadly, shoving incidents in the fall and winter, or this month’s tragic death of Michelle Go, who was pushed in front of a train at the Times Square station by a deranged homeless man.
A mugger had shoved a woman onto the tracks at the same station in November. She was rescued by good Samaritans.
Go’s death renewed calls for the MTA to test platform barriers that would prevent riders from being pushed onto tracks.
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