The agency says it’s borrowing “good ideas” from transit systems around the country — but some of them have already gone in a different direction.
Elevators
Posted inElevators
Privately Owned Midtown Subway Entrance Still Closed as City Pushes for Comeback
Additional reporting by Suhail Bhat Weekday subway ridership is nearing 60% of pre-pandemic levels and office occupancy is on the rise, but at a gateway to one of the city’s busiest subway stations, it might as well still be 2020. A privately maintained entrance into the 42nd Street-Bryant Park/Fifth Avenue station remains shuttered more than […]
Posted inTransit
MTA Looks to Ramp Up Subway Accessibility With Fewer Costly Elevators
As the MTA looks to increase accessibility in the subway system, top transit officials say pricey elevators are not the only way to open more stations to riders with disabilities. Many are inclined toward a simpler solution. “Ramps are failproof,” Quemuel Arroyo, the MTA’s chief accessibility officer, said last month when the Avenue H stop […]
Posted inTransit
MTA Looking for Private Business Help With Subway Accessibility Upgrades
The MTA wants to increasingly tap private developers for help with accessibility upgrades in subway stations — but critics warn that similar partnerships have a spotty track record. The transit agency and the Department of City Planning are pushing the “Elevate Transit: Zoning for Accessibility” proposal to have real estate developers build and maintain elevators […]
Posted inAccessibility
MTA’s Pandemic Federal Wish List Seeks $8B for Subway Elevators, Escalators and More
The future of the MTA’s $51.5 billion blueprint to improve the transit system has been clouded by uncertainty since being put on hold last June because of the pandemic-driven economic crisis. But a new document offers a window into which capital projects are eligible for federal funding — such as subway accessibility, elevator and escalator […]
Posted inNYCHA
A Bronx Grandmother Complained Repeatedly to NYCHA About Elevator Outages. Now She’s in a Coma After Falling in the Stairwell
Public housing tenant Eleanor Dowe lies in a coma in the intensive care unit at Bronx Lebanon Hospital — and her family blames NYCHA’s failure to do its job. The family alleges that the 66-year-old Bronx grandmother took the stairwell from her 19th floor apartment Saturday morning because both of the elevators in her building […]
Posted inAccessibility
Some NYC Subway Stations Getting Elevators While Others Get the Shaft Amid Budget Crunch
The MTA is moving ahead with plans to add elevators at eight train stations, despite a COVID-driven funding crunch that’s left planned accessibility upgrades at more than 50 other stops in limbo. The agency will tap federal grant money that must be used this year to inch forward on a centerpiece of its not-yet-funded $51 […]
Posted inAccessibility
MTA Crosses Street With Long-Delayed Hunter College Station Elevator
The MTA’s long-delayed pricey plans to make the 68th Street Hunter College station accessible to subway riders with disabilities will have to clear additional hurdles more than a decade after elevators were proposed for the Upper East Side stop. The transit agency has recommended shifting the location of a lift that would lead in and […]
Posted inTransit
Closed Private Subway Entrances Give Shuttered Feel to Manhattan Office Buildings and Former Hotspots
Additional reporting by The nine entrances, all in Midtown, Lower Manhattan, remain off-limits to commuters — and homeless people — more than six months into the pandemic. Even as more New Yorkers return to their offices and the subway system, nine privately maintained station entrances in Midtown and Lower Manhattan remain off-limits to riders more […]
Posted inMTA
Advocates Worry Accessibility Will Be Sacrificed in MTA Funding Crunch
The MTA made opening more of the subway to riders with disabilities a centerpiece of the agency’s capital improvement program unveiled last year — with 10% of the $51.5 billion plan pegged for adding elevators at more than 60 stations. In a subway system where barely a quarter of the 472 stations comply with the […]