MTA announces ambitious accessibility plan
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
The Metropolitan Transportation
Authority announced
plans to make 21 Brooklyn subway
stations wheelchair-accessible
over the next fi ve years.
The Authority is reserving
the upgrades for heavily traffi
cked stations located in accessibility
deserts throughout
Brooklyn, which remains one
of the most diffi cult borough
to traverse for disabled straphangers,
according to one disability
advocate.
“Brooklyn is really poorly
served when it comes to ADA
in the subway system, so this
is a good start,” said Joe Rappaport,
the head of the Brooklyn
Center for Independence of the
Disabled.
Some Brooklyn subway lines
disenfranchise entire neighborhoods
of disabled commuters,
such as the R line in Bay Ridge
or the F train between Kensington
and Coney Island.
Transit workers are currently
laboring to enhance accessibility
along the R line —
installing elevators at 59th,
86th, and 95th street stations
— and have plans to upgrade
the transit hub at 36th Street,
where local riders can transfer
to the N and D trains, under the
new plan.
The announcement also includes
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new elevators for four
stops along the F train in central
and southern Brooklyn, elevators
for the L, J, and Z trains
platforms at the Broadway
Junction stop in Cypress Hills,
where straphangers are forced
to ascend a vertigo-inducing
series of escalators and staircases,
and a new elevator at the
Hoyt-Schermerhorn station in
Downtown Brooklyn, where
the developer of a neighboring
building constructed a streetto
mezzanine elevator last year,
but which requires riders to descend
a fl ight stairs to access
access the platforms.
A full list of the stations
earmarked for accessibility
upgrades can be found on the
MTA’s website .
The transit agency named a
citywide total of 44 subway stations
in its accessibility master
plan, which is one part of a
record-breaking $51.1 billion
2020-2024 capital plan. Those
stations are in addition to four
pending accessibility upgrades
included in the Authority’s 2019
capital plan, bringing the grand
total of accessible stations to 48,
according to the city’s transit
tzar.
“These 48 stations are a terrifi
c fi rst step and help get us
closer than ever to achieving
system-wide accessibility that
all New Yorkers deserve,” said
Andy Byford, the Authority’s
head of New York City Transit.
The agency has earmarked
$5.2 billion of the upcoming
fi ve-year plan’s budget to make
a total 66 stations accessible
citywide — only about a quarter
of the subway’s 472 stops
currently have elevators.
Rappaport’s group is one
of a cadre of disability advocate
organizations that fi led
lawsuits against the agency
last spring demanding all
major station projects be accompanied
by accessibility
upgrades. He said that, while
the large amount of station
upgrades are promising, they
remain little more than nice
ideas without a legally-binding
guarantee.
“Anyone who deals with the
MTA — whether it’s announcements
about two-minute delays
or months-long service interruptions
because of works —
knows that the MTA doesn’t
always keep it’s promises,” he
said.
Agency spokeswoman
Amanda Kwan said that the Authority’s
accessibility list has
not been fi nalized, and the enhancements
remain dependent
on the agency’s ability to cash
in on various funding streams,
including the state’s proposed
congestion pricing tax.
The Authority plans to add
22 additional stations to it’s accessibility
master plan after
taking public input, before a review
board with reps from city
and state governments green
light the scheme sometime between
early October and the
end of the year.
The Transit Authority will install an elevator at the the Hoyt-Schermerhorn
stop in Downtown Brooklyn, which will connect disabled commuters
to a pre-existing lift there. Photo by Kevin Duggan
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