MTA Completes $177M in Renovations at W. 14th Subway Stations

By Arthur Schwartz

Over five years, after a combination of disability rights groups and local block associations brought suit over the inaccessibility of the 14th Street subway stops, the full project was finally unveiled on December 20th. The MTA spent $177 million at the W. 14th Street stop where the long closed tunnel that links the 6th and 7th Avenue stations is finally open. And both stations now have new elevators and subway artwork. The West 14th Street complex serves the F, L, M, 1, 2 and 3 trains at both the 6th and 7th Avenue stations.

This saga began back in 2019 when the city first announced its new Busway on 14th Street, and the MTA announced that the L train, which runs from 8th Avenue and 14th Street to Brooklyn, would be closed for a new tunnel under the East River, and some cosmetic repairs to the stations along 14th Street. The plan only included one elevator at 1st Avenue. There were already elevators at Union Square and at 8th Avenue, but none at 6th and 7th Avenues. A lawsuit was filed addressed to the Busway and the subway renovation plans, asserting in part, that the Americans with Disabilities Act was being violated. The ADA required all subway renovations to include an elevator for accessibility. The MTA settled and agreed to put in elevators at 14th and 6th, and to start work by December 2020. When the work wasn’t started in December 2020, the Plaintiffs (which included the 504 Democratic Club and Disabled in Action [I was their attorney]) threatened to go back to court. The MTA General Counsel proposed, to quiet us down, to add the 7th Avenue station, and to reopen the tunnel between the stations, if we could get some unused Federal transportation money diverted to the project. We contacted Senator Chuck Schumer, who met with the new Transportation Secretary, and by April 2021 we had the money. Three years of construction
followed.

The stations for 14th Street subway lines at 6th and 7th Avenues now have improved accessibility for all. Work crews repaired concrete, steel and paint defects, and refinished platforms featuring ADA boarding areas. The entire complex has 25 new staircases and 39 renovated staircases, as well as five platform upgrades, which includes new tactile warning strips and ADA boarding areas. As of December 19, four new elevators provide access to the platforms at the 14th Street F, M and L station and the 1, 2 and 3 platforms at 7th Avenue, making the 14th Street station complex accessible, manageable for the disabled, seniors, suitcase-laden travelers, and people with strollers. Additionally, the 7th Avenue station has an enlarged mezzanine with new lighting and tiles.

Weekday usage for both the 6th and 7th Avenue stations is upwards of 130,000 customers. They serve six lines connecting four boroughs, as well as two PATH train lines to Hudson County, NJ.

 

The station complex features new artwork by Fred Tomaselli. A suite of six mosaics, Wild Things, can be found along the passageway to 6th Avenue, and to the Uptown and Downtown trains at 14th Street and 7th Avenue. The artist focused on birds that also call New York their home year-round. The glass mosaics employ a variety of fabrication techniques to capture the artist’s original collaged and painted images. The new artwork, with additional sections inside the 14th Street and 6th Avenue station, adds more than 680 square feet of mosaic throughout the complex.

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ARTHUR SCHWARTZ is General Counsel of the Center for the Independence of the Disabled, NY. As Democraic District Leader, Schwartz has litigated about numerous environmental and disability rights issues in the Village for 30 years.