If you're designing a new airport, sure, you can have runways with ample safety margins and generous overrun areas at the end of the runways. If you want to make an existing airport safer, and you can't buy up and demolish buildings around it, using EMAS is actually a cost-effective safety improvement.

The Wikipedia article says exactly the opposite, citing hard numers.

There was a young girl who survived the crash of Asiana flight 214, but was run over by a firetruck because she was covered in extinguisher foam.