It took more than a year for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to capitulate to public opposition to a proposed ban on photography in the subway. Now, a widely criticized proposal to prohibit walking between subway cars – along with other proposed rules – is being reconsidered.

Yesterday, the MTA board postponed votes on whether to ban walking between subway cars and adopt a host of other rules, until it meets again next month. The board’s chairman, Peter Kalikow, said the board would take the next month to review the proposed rules and possibly change them – though he would not specify what those changes would look like.

“You know, we do listen,” Mr. Kalikow told reporters yesterday. “People ask us to review things, and we actually do listen.”

Until yesterday, however, the MTA did not appear receptive to comments from the riding public: A majority of passengers who weighed in had opposed the ban, according to a report prepared for the transit committee. Riders have expressed concern that forbidding them from carefully passing between moving cars might trap them in a car with a dangerous passenger or with exceedingly unpleasant conditions.

“Nonetheless, it is felt that the safety concerns … predominate and it therefore recommended that the amendment be adopted as originally proposed,” the report said.

Despite the drafting of the new rules, barely half as many tickets were issued last year for violating the existing rule against riding between or on top of cars than in 2003, according to statistics from the Transit Adjudication Bureau.

In 2004, officers issued 881 of the $75 tickets. The previous year, 1,613 tickets were issued.

The MTA’s transit committee, after some deliberation Monday, adopted the new rules unanimously. Besides a ban on moving between cars, the new rules introduced additional language aimed at making existing bans less open to interpretation. Most notably, an existing ban against bringing open beverage containers onto the subway included an additional sentence making it illegal to drink beverages on trains – much to the confusion and consternation of the public.

“There seems to be a misapprehension that you can’t drink water from a closed bottle with a cap on it, which is not so,” Mr. Kalikow said of the new rule. “You can.” The chairman apparently meant that sucking the beverage from a squirt-top bottle would not be verboten.

Drinking from coffee cups, however, remains illegal. Baby bottles, since they have a spill-proof nipple, are okay. Water bottles with screw caps – like the ones that sat before the members of the board during their meeting – would be illegal, a spokesman for New York City Transit, James Anyansi, said.

Last year, according to the Transit Adjudication Bureau, 48 tickets were issued for open-container violations, which carry a $25 fine. In 2003, 72 tickets were issued for that infraction.

The most common infraction is fare evasion, according to statistics from the Transit Adjudication Bureau.