Out of Service: Creating an Equitable Transit System for NYC

Photo courtesy of the Office of the Public Advocate.

Jumaane Williams, our Public Advocate, has released a report slamming the MTA and NYC Transit Authority about the continuing lack of accessibility for our subway system, a problem for New Yorkers with disabilities and for older New Yorkers. We recommend that readers view the whole report at the NYC Public Advocate web site, pubadvocate.nyc.gov

Every day, millions of people ride New York City’s subways, light rail systems, and buses. For many, steep stairs, narrow walkways, confusing station layouts, and unintelligible loudspeaker announcements make navigating the subway challenging and stressful. For New Yorkers with disabilities (an estimated 930,100 in New York City, and over 3 million in New York State, these conditions may make subway ridership impossible. While the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) has made significant improvements in its accessibility in recent decades, New York City’s transit system remains behind other major U.S. cities and cities worldwide. The lack of elevators and unobstructed pathways combined with unpredictable service makes trip planning extremely difficult, impacting disabled people’s ability to get to work, school, social events, and appointments.
It is time for the MTA to make reaching one hundred percent accessibility in all stations its top priority, including not only installing elevators and removing physical barriers but also other accessibility improvements including wayfinding indicators and apps, tactile pathways, hearing loop technology, Braille signage, and closed captioning for announcements on train screens. The MTA has prioritized elevator installation in its accessibility improvement plan, but that is not the only technology needed to open the subways to people of all abilities. Until transportation is fully accessible and available to all people with disabilities, New York City cannot expect to eliminate other persistent inequities for disabled people such as underemployment, unemployment, and accessible housing shortages.
In April of 2023, a federal judge approved a settlement to a class-action lawsuit requiring the MTA to equip 95 percent of subway and Staten Island Railroad stations with elevators and/or ramps by the year 2055. New York City’s transit system as it exists now has created a two-tier system, with its accessible options providing far worse service. This settlement is a first step towards creating an equitable transit system that allows all New Yorkers and its visitors to fully access all of its services, but there is much work to be done.

Accessibility Benefits Us All
This report, first and foremost, seeks to outline the inequities disabled New Yorkers experience while using public transit in New York City and recommend how the city can make this system fully accessible and inclusive. It is, simply put, the right thing to do: people with disabilities have the same right to fully access city services as people without disabilities. The law also increasingly demands that barriers to full integration and engagement in public life be remedied and addressed.
Improving accessibility also benefits us all—and not only in the way that, for example, elevators make it easier for parents with strollers to get to the subway platform. People with disabilities are our family members, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and members of our communities—and almost everyone will temporarily or permanently experience disability in their life—and everyone’s life is improved when these barriers to full participation in all our city has to offer are removed.