12 FEBRUARY 7, 2019 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
The shame of the subways
The tragic death of a young mother
who fell down a stairwell at a
Manhattan subway station stairwell
last month has shined a new light
on the MTA’s accessibility problem.
Just 25 percent of the city’s subway
stations — 119 out of 472 stops — are
considered accessible under federal
standards in the Americans for Disabilities
Act (ADA) enacted back in
1990. While the ADA mandated that
any new stations be made with provisions
for persons with disabilities,
there’s no such requirement for retrofi
tting already-established stations.
More egregiously, however, is the
absence of an elevator from subway
stations near several major medical
centers serving Queens.
When you arrive at the Elmhurst
Avenue station on the M/R line, you’ll
notice a sign embedded on the tile:
“CITY HOSPITAL AT ELMHURST.”
Below the sign is a red arrow pointing
the way to the exit closest to Elmhurst
Hospital, one of Queens’ biggest and
busiest medical centers.
But if you are taking the subway and
are confi ned to a wheelchair or using crutches, you’re out of luck. There’s no
elevator at the Elmhurst Avenue station
to easily connect you to Elmhurst
Hospital.
The same can be said for patients at
Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, just
over the Ridgewood/Bushwick border
in Brooklyn. Thousands of Queens
residents visit the hospital annually,
but the closest subway station — the
DeKalb Avenue stop on the L line, with
an exit right next door to the hospital
itself — also lacks an elevator or other
ADA provisions.
Then there’s Northwell Forest Hills
Hospital, another medical center caring
for thousands of Queens patients
annually, located three blocks north of
the 67th Avenue stop on the M/R lines.
The 67th Avenue station also doesn’t
have an elevator.
Finally, and most shamefully, is the
30th Avenue station on the N/W line
in Astoria, located two blocks east of
Mount Sinai Queens Hospital. The
station reopened last year aft er an
extensive and costly overhaul — but
left out of those improvements was the
installation of an elevator.
It’s disgraceful that the MTA, nearly
three decades aft er the ADA was
signed into law, hasn’t done anything
to improve accessibility at these four
stations.
We recognize how costly it is to
upgrade every single subway station
in New York City, but for the MTA to
overlook providing ADA accessibility
at every station near a major public
health facility is just maddening.
The MTA’s Fast Forward improvement
plan calls for upgrading 50
stations over the next fi ve years. That
would bring the system’s accessibility
rate to 35.8 percent.
It’s not nearly enough.
We urge the MTA to double its accessibility
goals in Fast Forward, and
ensure that every subway station near
every major medical center in New
York City meets ADA requirements.
EDITORIAL
ESTABLISHED 1908
Co-Publishers
VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS
JOSHUA SCHNEPS
Editor-in-Chief
ROBERT POZARYCKI
Classifi ed Manager
DEBORAH CUSICK
Assistant Classifi ed Manager
MARLENE RUIZ
Reporters
EMILY DAVENPORT
MARK HALLUM
CARLOTTA MOHAMED
ALEJANDRA O'CONNELL-DOMENECH
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