By ELVA RAMIREZ and JANE H. FURSE
Additional reporting by Pete Donohue and Jimmy Vielkind

Subway clerks at eight more stations will leave their booths and take to the platforms today as the latest round of token booth closings takes effect.

The closings are the second wave in a controversial plan to shutter 164 token booths by next spring - a plan that the Transit Authority says benefits riders but that opponents charge is a service cutback and a security risk.

MTA spokesman Charles Seaton said subway riders seem happy to see the maroon-vested station agents out among the straphangers, helping with directions "rather than being locked in the booths."

Marty Goodman of the Transport Workers Union, which represents 5,500 station agents and other station employees, said the program is "a slap in the face to the riders who were promised no service cuts."

"They are masking a service cut as a service enhancement," he said.

Mayoral hopeful Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Queens, Brooklyn) held a news conference yesterday at Union Square and called the plan the start down "a very slippery slope" in terms of security. Invoking the terrorist bombings on the London and Madrid transit systems, Weiner called on officials to provide security cameras, bombproof trash cans and 911 cellular service for every station.

Yesterday, riders had mixed opinions about the empty booths. Though some said they welcomed roving station agents, others, struggling with bags or strollers, said they want someone in the booth to buzz them through locked gates. Others said they felt more secure with someone in a booth.

Mary Brady, 87, struggled down a broken escalator at the 205th St. station in the Bronx, which is among the stations losing a token booth clerk. Then she had a few choice words after learning that no one was available to sell her a MetroCard.

"Come on! I think that's stupid. I don't know how to work the machine. I can't believe it," she said.