Bronx, NY - Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz stood outside the West 231st downtown 1 Train Elevator with City Comptroller Scott Stringer, Council Member Andrew Cohen, Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez, Assembly Member Carmen De La Rosa, Monica Bartley from the Center for Independence of the Disabled, NY, Mel Plaut Program Analyst from TransitCenter and Jaqi Cohen, Campaign Coordinator of New York Public Interest Research Group’s Straphangers Campaign to demand a concrete plan from the MTA to achieve 100% ADA compliance within a reasonable time period.

The elected officials and transit and disability advocates were united in this demand, and called for major improvements in the MTA’s current elevator maintenance procedures. An audit from City Comptroller Stringer released in May 2017 found that nearly 80 percent of machines sampled did not receive all of their scheduled preventative maintenance. That report also found that nearly a quarter of sampled maintenance checklists were not completed.

Despite the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, New York City has lagged behind other cities in meeting ADA compliance and has not developed a new plan to do so since the Key Station Plan was adopted in 1994. According to TransitCenter, only 23% of Subway stations are accessible to those who cannot use stairs to reach the train platforms. This is not only an issue for people with disabilities, but also for parents with strollers, seniors who have difficulty with stairs, and people traveling with large bags.

Even when stations do have elevators, chronic breakdowns and a lack of real-time elevator availability information leave many transit users stranded without any opportunity to plan ahead. The West 231st Street downtown elevator (the only ADA accessible station that serves the Kingsbridge-Riverdale area) was out of service nearly every other day during the month of August, continuing a trend of unreliability that was documented by local press in the spring. The frequent breakdowns belie an elevator that was built within the last decade, and are a strong indicator that something is amiss in current maintenance practices.

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz said: “The elevator at West 231st Street is the only ADA compliant subway station on the 1 line in my Assembly district, despite a preponderance of seniors and people who struggle with stairs. So when this elevator breaks down, people are forced to significantly alter or even cancel their plans for the day. We need to both add new elevators at all subway stations and make sure our existing elevators are properly maintained.”

City Comptroller Scott Stringer said: “When we allow elevators and escalators to break down, it means we aren’t being a City that’s truly open and accessible to all. Behind every broken machine and inaccessible station, there are New Yorkers who can’t travel. It has to change. This is about right and wrong,” said New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer. “We have to do better, and we need to plan today for a fully accessible MTA tomorrow. That’s why the MTA should release a roadmap to make all stations ADA-compliant once and for all, and I’m proud to stand with Assemblyman Dinowitz and all of the advocates in the fight to make our subways accessible to every New Yorker.”

Council Member Andrew Cohen said: “We need to make sure that the elevators at Subway stations are in working order and are being maintained. It’s a quality of life issue. People rely on the Subway to get to work, appointments, family and social obligations. When the elevators are down, those with disabilities, seniors, or any who have trouble getting around are forced to change their plans. I was proud to stand with Assemblyman Dinowitz, Comptroller Stringer, and other community advocates to ask the MTA to do their part in ensuring that Subway serves everyone, including those with disabilities.”

"Train derailments and track fires easily catch the attention of the media, but we don't talk enough about the frequency with which elevators break down throughout the city, and the thousands of New Yorkers a day who don't have equitable access to the subway," said Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez. "Broken elevators and the lack of accessible stations are part of the MTA crisis we are facing. New Yorkers deserve existing accessible stations to be dependable."

Mel Plaut, Program Analyst at TransitCenter said: "Nearly 30 years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the MTA operates the least accessible subway system in the country, and hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers across the city continue to be denied access to the subway system every single day. Only 23% of the stations in the system have elevators. The few elevators that do exist are notoriously unreliable, with an average of 25 outages per day throughout the system. The 231st Street Station is emblematic of the MTA’s neglect of accessibility throughout the entire subway system. We need strong leadership to fix this problem and we hope that Governor Cuomo, Chairman Lhota, and the MTA leadership will step up and make accessibility a priority once and for all."

Jaqi Cohen, Campaign Coordinator at NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign said: New Yorkers deserve a transit system that is not only affordable and reliable, but one that is accessible, particularly for the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who depend on elevators to access the subway system. New York cannot consider itself a modern city if it continuously bars access to its transit system, one of the largest in the world, to riders who cannot take the stairs.

Monica Bartley, Community Outreach Organizer at Center for the Independence of the Disabled, New York (CIDNY) said: The MTA subway system has an insufficient number of elevators and the existing ones are frequently broken. That makes the system inaccessible for wheelchair users and people with mobility or other issues that prevent them from using the stairs. It affects our ability to get to work, to visit friends, to go shopping, and to participate in everything that the city has to offer.