Debora Alvo was getting on an uptown 3 train at the 72 Street station when suddenly the subway doors closed on the stroller holding her 3-year-old daughter, Carly.

A man standing inside the train car helped Alvo force the doors open. Alvo, 44, said the only reason Carly wasn’t injured was because the girl’s hands were inside the stroller at the time.

“Oh my God, it freaked me out,” Alvo said of the January incident. “I actually didn’t take the subway for a long time. My daughter was terrified. Finally, I assured her that we would try it one more time and if it was scary we wouldn’t do it again.”

Danger Lurks

For many parents, the subway is the best way to get around the city. But traveling on the train with children can be dangerous. That’s why the Transit Authority has a longstanding advertising campaign urging parents fold strollers and carry them – and their tots – on the train.

“That is not feasible because you have to juggle carrying the baby in one arm,” said Alvo, who lives on the Upper West Side. “The stroller in the other, and then if anything happens, you don’t even have a free arm to push your way into anywhere.”

The Transit Authority eliminated a stroller ban in 1990 amid protests from parents and women’s rights organizations. Within two years of the ban being lifted, 27 children had been hurt in the subway, according to news reports. At the time, the agency said most of the stroller accidents occurred on escalators or stairways, where children were bounced off their seats. But in other cases, children in strollers were caught in subway doors.

A.J. Pierce remembers when a wheel of his two-year-old son’s stroller got caught in between the closed doors of a No. 2 as they rushed to get the train. His son, Damien, was not hurt. Pierce, 21, said it’s happened two more times since.

“I am not trying to run into a train door like that anymore,” said Pierce, who lives in East New York. “I will just let the train go.”

All subway cars have sensitive edges that would stop the train from moving if anything gets stuck between the doors and prevent anyone from being dragged, said Charles Seaton, a Transit Authority spokesman.

“The conductor is in charge of closing the doors and he has all the view of the doors,” Seaton said. “But don’t blame this all on the conductor. Is the people who shouldn’t put the strollers into the closing doors.”

Mind the Gap

The Transit Authority’s website also urges parents to watch out for the gap between the platforms edge and train. The Authority also suggests boarding with strollers near the conductor’s car because it makes it easier to get attention in case of a problem.

That’s advice Pierce takes. He said most of the conductors leave the doors open until he gets in. Still, there have been exceptions.

“If I feel it was my fault the doors closed on me,” Pierce said, “I wouldn’t report it. But if he sees me and he still closed the doors, I will.”

In September 2008, two transit workers were awarded with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s heroism medal for saving a baby girl in a stroller who tumbled from a subway platform to the tracks as an L train was approaching the Atlantic Avenue station in Brooklyn. The workers jumped to the tracks and walked toward the approaching train, waving their arms to alert the motorman about 300 feet away.

The stroller could have rolled onto the tracks because platforms tilt toward the tracks to allow for drainage, officials said at the time. The Transit Authority said parents should keep strollers away from the edge and apply the brake.

Unlike walking through subway cars, none of the agency’s safety tips are mandatory rules. Parents can’t be fined for pushing an open stroller on the subways.

“It’s just a safety precaution,” said James Anyansi, a Transit Authority spokesman.

Enforcement Issue

Karyl Cafiero, a staff member of the New York City Transit Riders Council (NYCTRC), a citizens advisory group, said until traveling on the subway with an open stroller is made a violation, parents and police would continue to ignore the safety recommendations.

“The police don’t want to go up to some woman who has a four-year-old and pushing a stroller,” Cafiero said. “What is he going to say to her? You have to fold your stroller up? If they are not getting any incentives, if there is no code of enforcement, then they are not going to touch it.”

Alvo doesn’t believe parents should be fined for having an open stroller in the subway. She said one solution is for conductors to keep the doors opened a couple of seconds longer.

“Any other city in the world you get to walk around like a human being,” Alvo said, “except in New York City, where you have to race like a rat.”