NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced the first 48 subway stations to be upgraded to full accessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act under its proposed capital plan for 2020-24.
Increased ADA compliance is one of the primary goals of the capital plan outlined earlier this week [see “MTA outlines 2020-24 capital plan,” Trains News Wire, Sept. 17, 2019.]
An additional 22 stations will be selected based on criteria including which stations can be modified on the shortest timeline with minimal disruption to service. In all, $5.5 billion is budgeted for the accessibility improvements.
“These 48 stations are a terrific first step and help get us closer than ever to achieving systemwide accessibility that all New Yorkers deserve,” NYC Transit President Andy Byford said in a press release. “We look forward to hearing from our customers and the community as we work to identify the additional 22 stations.”
The full release and list of stations is available here.
This is going to be a major project. Most of the stations have platforms at different levels and that intersect at different points. Think of pickup sticks(platforms) and then trying to connect the sticks vertically(elevators). With newer systems thought is given to connections. And space is allotted at street level for elevators.
Suggestion: when you write about “MTA” please include in the headline WHICH MTA you are writing about. There are several. For this one, you can call it NY/Conn MTA. Ironically, the one for which the song was written (Boston) changed its name to MBTA.