As the month of February was coming to an end, the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) held an open in-person forum to ask for help on Accessible Station Priorities for the 2025-2029 Capital Plan. The agency reached out to the community, explaining: “Your feedback and the input from the disability community is vital as we work to make our transit system accessible to everyone.”
The $68.4 billion dollar Capital Plan aims to provide frequent and reliable service, which is “really the touchstone for the state of good repair work,” as Sean Fitzpatrick, Deputy Chief of Staff at the MTA shared. “[It] is the largest ever investment in accessibility in MTA history.”
However, only 10% of the total amount will actually be invested to make more stations accessible.
Attendees who could not join the open forum can fill out a station selection feedback form to help the MTA select which stations to prioritize for accessibility improvements over the next five years. Customers are given the option to choose up to 30 stations across the five boroughs in addition to the 30 stations already approved under the proposed 2025-2029 Capital Plan, for a total of more than 60 stations.
The $7.1 billion allotment for accessibility also includes funding to make at least six Long Island Rail Road stations accessible and replace 45 subway station elevators to minimize disruptions.
To date, the MTA has made 46 stations ADA-accessible since 2020, and another 43 stations are currently under construction.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s infamous “pause” on congestion pricing delayed construction progress on goals outlined in the MTA’s previous capital plan. Some activists find it concerning that the agency continues its ambitious plans without having yet finished their last promise.
In response, Fitzpatrick told Able News that ”there never has or will be an MTA capital plan that is completely finished by the time that sort of five year period ends,” noting that they’re making up for lost time this year with over $12 billion dollars worth of projects started and over $9 billion dollars worth of projects set to be finished
“We’re able to make lemonade out of some of these things, too” he added. “We’re excited by the opportunity to integrate our 2025 to 2029 projects in and sort of create some of those bundles to be even more efficient [and] stretch dollars even further.”
Christopher D. Greif, Community Outreach Officer of New York City Transit’s Advisory Committee on Transit Accessibility (ACTA), filled out the station survey more than ten times before strongly and actively sharing his thoughts at MTA’s open forum alongside his mother, Debbie. When the Brooklyn native is with his mom, their routine is to take a lengthy bus ride after getting off the B and Q lines of the King’s Highway train station to get home. That’s why they passionately advocated for Avenue U, Sheepshead Bay, and Brighton Beach stations to be made accessible. “We have all new buildings there [and] we have so many seniors and people with disabilities,” said Debbie, also expressing the mutual feeling of her fellow board members at Community Board 13 and Community Board 15.
Another station that Greif has been pressing the MTA to make accessible for six years is Richmond Valley in Staten Island because “that’s a major bus lane,” he said. “It goes to the Staten Island Mall and the Staten Island Developmental Center. That station needs to be accessible. Thank God we have the R211S.”
Computer science Ph.D. student Jonathan Hanon, who maneuvers himself on a walker, raised concerns about the need for accessibility around his Inwood neighborhood in Manhattan. He either takes Access-A-Ride or the 1 train from Dyckman Street to 34th Street, Penn Station to get to class at CUNY because of the distance and uphill topographical issues near the area. “168th to 191st is too far and to get from 191st to Dyckman, that’s a 200 foot hill to climb,” he said. “It’s physically impossible. You can’t climb Fort George Hill with a mobility device.”
Hanon, who is also a cybersecurity professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, is not all about work and likes to “have some recreation” in his life; he would like it to be more feasible to go to his favorite parks. The only thing in his way is once again, the large gaps in accessibility of the subway system.” 7th Avenue to 15th Street is longer than the entire gap on the F line and the B line. It’s just a huge gap over there that we have so much distance that is an entire Prospect Park of a gap. It’s massive,” he said about the difficulty around Prospect Park. Grand Army Plaza’s Seventh Avenue Q line, and 190th Street station in Washington Heights fall into that same category of problems, limiting access to Fort Tryon Park. “The number of stations shouldn’t be the priority,” Hanon added. “We should look at actual distance, the actual landscape that’s in between the stations.”
Another popular station in need of accessibility changes that riled up everyone in attendance at the MTA’s forum was Queens’ Mets-Willets Point, near Citi Field baseball stadium, because as one attendee said, “that’s an extremely important station that is a major commercial center for a lot of things in the city when it comes to feeling safe.” But the main concern on everyone’s mind is: Why is the accessible part of the station only open on game days?
Although Greif is “pleased” with the accessibility work the MTA has done in the last 15 years, he says he will continue advocating for full accessibility of the transit system in honor of his mentor, activist Edith Prentiss, and his grandmother. He urges everyone to engage in this important work because, as he said, “the future rides with us.”