NYC: PROTESTS FOR SUBWAY ELEVATORS RESULT IN FEDERAL ACTION
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE/ADVISORY
Contact: Tony Murphy 347-602-1584
PROTESTS FOR SUBWAY ELEVATORS RESULT IN FEDERAL ACTION
FED PROSECUTORS JOIN BRONX LAWSUIT AGAINST MTA TO INSTALL ELEVATORS
Activists Say This Vindicates the Demand for Subway Elevators
The People’s MTA Calls Protest in Front of MTA Board Mtg to Keep the Pressure On
Wednesday, March 21 — 9 AM, 2 Broadway
Disability rights advocates said yesterday’s news of federal legal action against the MTA for failing to install elevators in renovated stations is a dramatic response to activist pressure that vindicates the demand for elevators in all subways.
“We’ve been saying all along that when the MTA renovates a station they should include elevators,” said Mary Kaessinger, a wheelchair user and activist with The People’s MTA. “It is feasible. If they can put elevators in Times Square, they can put them anywhere.”
For months, transit authority members have responded to protests and demands for accessibility by insisting that elevators were too expensive, unwieldy, and just plain not feasible.
“At the MTA’s October board meeting,” Kaessinger continued, “MTA Chairman Lhota and board member Andrew Albert repeatedly stated that the physical layout of many stations made installing elevators impossible.”
“It turns out that these same claims made by the MTA about the Bronx Middletown Station – that elevator installation was too expensive and impractical – were rejected not only by the Federal Transit Administration but also by New York’s own Department of Transportation.”
The language in the lawsuit is unambiguous: “It would have been technically feasible to install one or more elevators at the Middletown Road station,” the brief reads.
“This not only has implications for the many cosmetic-only station renovations that are now being organized with no plans for elevator installation,” Kaessinger stated. “It also expands what is possible in the talks between the MTA and the Center for Independence of the Disabled, ordered just last week by the New York State supreme court.”
Kaessinger has attended previous hearings about the Middletown Station elevators. “At the Middletown station hearing, the MTA lawyers engaged in circular reasoning. They argued there was no need for an elevator at the Middletown station because no wheelchair rider had ever tried to use that station. What wheelchair rider would go there if they had to climb two flights of stairs to get to the train? Also, parents with strollers use elevators. Are they going to say no babies were born in that area?”
The People’s MTA has called the protest next week in front of the MTA to keep the pressure on for the demand for elevators in the subway. “History shows that it is mass pressure and people mobilizing in the streets that ultimately determines what happens in the court,” Kaessinger said.
-30-
