(Bloomberg) -- New York City’s transit system is launching a new type of subway train where riders can walk between cars and doors are wider, the first of its kind in modern US history.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority Thursday ran the new R211T open gangway trains on the C line for the first time. The pilot program includes two such trains, with 10 cars each. While the more spacious trains are used on mass-transit systems in Europe and Asia, the MTA’s investment is the first for a US public transportation provider, according to the MTA.

“You can actually move seamlessly from one car to the other,” Governor Kathy Hochul told reporters before boarding the train for its first passenger trip. “You’re not trapped. You want to have a different experience? You can get up and move around. You don’t get claustrophobic.”

The MTA needs new cars. About 1,500 subway railcars are already past their 40-year limit, according to the MTA’s 20-year needs assessment, which lists all the upgrades needed to modernize its system of subways, buses and commuter rail lines. The agency will need to replace more than 3,900 subway cars during the next 20 years, an initiative that will cost an estimated $15 billion, according to Thomas DiNapoli, the state’s comptroller. 

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The design of the R211T links the cars together in open passageways so riders don’t need to exit one car to find seating in another. Its door openings are eight inches wider than those on MTA’s existing subway trains. That’ll accelerate boarding and offer easier entry and exit. There’s also additional accessibility seating.

“With open gangway — spreading out the crowds and more room by the doors — we are going to be able to get people on and off transit much faster and that includes our disabled New Yorkers who deserve to be able to easily move,” Janno Lieber, the MTA’s chief executive officer, said during the press conference.

The 20 open gangway cars are part of a $1.4 billion contract with Kawasaki Rail Car Inc. that also includes 440 standard subway cars and 75 Staten Island Railway cars, according to MTA data.

The new trains also include security cameras in each car, which will help the MTA as it aims to install them in all of its subway cars by January 2025 to help reduce crime on the transit system. There were 570 reported assaults on its subways in 2023, the most since at least 1997, according to MTA data.

The new cars will run on the C line, which connects northern Manhattan to Brooklyn. The MTA needs to fix how it can run the open gangway trains on the A line, an express route that follows the C line, according to reports.

A similar type of train, a three-car open gangway train, ran along a portion of New York City’s subway network from 1925 to 1965, according to the MTA.

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