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MTA On The Hot Seat After More Falling Debris Rains Down On Pedestrians, Drivers In Queens

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – It's happened again.

Another close call for drivers after another piece of debris fell from an elevated subway track in Queens Wednesday morning.

A resident reported the incident, reigniting the call for the MTA to add more protection.

Dangerous pieces of debris once again rained down onto Roosevelt Avenue in Queens. A chunk of metal plunged off the elevated 7 line and gave locals a scare.

"It could injury somebody, it could potentially kill somebody," Woodside resident Stephanie Mendoza.

"At any given moment somebody can just have debris fall on them whether they're driving or just walking, it can be pretty traumatizing," Mauricio Bustamante added.

One person claims to have experienced just that. Revealing photos of what fell to city council member Jimmy Van Bramer who then tweeted them and called on the MTA to expand the netting it recently put up as a trial along the 7 before someone gets hurt.

"If we don't do this we're going to not continue to be lucky and have people seeing debris or finding debris or just having the debris miss them. Someone is going to get hit so I would just continue to appeal to Andy Byford and to the MTA to take this pilot and extended it right away," Van Bramer explained.

The MTA wouldn't go on camera to answer questions. They instead emailed CBS2, saying that netting is up at four locations – but it wasn't at the latest subway station. Some Woodside residents say that's not good enough.

"I think they need to check what's starting to fall apart and what isn't so they can start updating. You can tell that these tracks are old because there's just a bunch of rust and nobody comes to fix it," Mendoza added.

In June, two women were almost hit by scraps of metal that fell from the subway track.

Back in February, a wooden plank smashed through a car windshield, narrowly missing the driver. The MTA says it will expand netting locations – when it perfects the best way to do so.

The MTA claims it selected the four locations to install trial netting based on deterioration and old age.

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