It’s freezing outside–and the city’s neglect has left disabled New Yorkers iced in.
If you don’t have an all-terrain adaptation built onto your mobility device to ram into mountains of snow, good luck crossing the street or boarding an accessible vehicle.
The one-month anniversary in office for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was not filled with smiles but rather a series of challenges for the administration as the city was bombarded with a blanket of snow earlier this month.
Even though sidewalk paths have been cleared for the most part, people with disabilities are still calling the streets of New York City “impassable.”
“Rolling down the street is impossible. Intersections are no man’s land and no one clears a curb cut,” a wheelchair-using government employee told Able News.
Jean Ryan, president of disability activist group Disabled In Action, said that she had to cancel the group’s first advocacy event on February 1st at their new Wall Street area headquarters because the streets were not cleared and members would have trouble getting there.
“For decades, nothing much has changed for access for people with disabilities after a big snowstorm,” Ryan said. “Our needs are not a priority even though what benefits us benefits many people who have no disability.”
Blocked curbs are forcing the disabled community to cancel appointments. Ryan got lucky– when two neighbors were shoveling out their car, they voluntarily shoveled the curb cut closest to her residence.
“If you manage to get on a bus, how can you know you will be able to get off at your destination? she said. “It is so cold, it is dangerous to risk getting stuck outside in the snow.”
The city has witnessed the longest streak of below-freezing temperatures since 1961 – more than ten days below 25 degrees, making it harder for the Mamdani administration, which promised faster and more efficient results, to take down and clean up tall mounds of snow and ice dumped onto the curbs by the historic winter snowstorm in a timely manner.
“The 12 to 15 inches of snow we received followed by two weeks of mostly subfreezing temperatures is unprecedented in recent memory. There is a massive amount of snow that is not moving on its own – and we have been out there clearing it away, 24 hours a day, seven days a week since the flakes started to fall, with a commitment to pedestrian infrastructure so that people can move about the city safely,” New York City Department of Sanitation’s Press Secretary Vincent Gragnani, told Able News in an email statement. “We have hauled and melted well over 310 million pounds of snow.”
Still, The Center for Independence of the Disabled, New York (CIDNY) has received more than 15 complaints from disabled New Yorkers about snow removal in the community’s most populated areas, all of which were redirected to 311, the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities and the City Comptroller’s office.
In some cases, members of the disabled community have detailed moments when DSNY purposely shoveled snow piles in front of curb cuts and pedestrian ramps, and refused to clear the way for mobility-impaired individuals.
Much to the Comptroller’s office credit, they have actively been placing calls to 311 and local council members trying to help people get their streets cleared but “it’s a nightmare,” one representative said.
Though the New York City Department of Transportation owns all the streets and sidewalks, boarding islands have also been on the back burner for snow clearance, preventing buses and Access-A-Ride vehicles from deploying their ramps, another aspect DSNY claims it is addressing.
“We have had 2,500 sanitation workers on every 12-hour shift, 500 emergency snow shovelers, and about 700 pieces of contracted specialized equipment working to get the city fully safe and clear. In addition to brining, salting and plowing all roads and bike lanes, we also cleared paths at all unsheltered bus stops, as well as more than 44,000 crosswalks citywide,” the agency continued to say.
Neither NYCDOT nor The Mayor’s Office For People With Disabilities have answered email inquiries from Able News on the matter.
If not for a doctor’s appointment, Ryan says she will resign to staying home until conditions improve in Bay Ridge.
“If there is no will from the politicians, nothing changes,” Ryan said. “I do not know when we will be able to freely move around our city.”