Feds Slam MTA For Leaving Subway Station With No Elevator

NEW YORK, NY — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority broke federal law when it renovated a Bronx subway station without intalling elevators, leaving it still useless to many disabled straphangers, federal prosecutors argued Tuesday.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in New York's Southern District joined a 2016 federal lawsuit against the MTA, saying in a complaint filed Tuesday that the agency's $27 million worth of work of the Middletown Road 6 train station violated the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

The MTA and the New York City Transit Authority, the branch of the MTA that operates the subway system, completed the project without installing an elevator even after federal officials said one was required, prosecutors said.

The complaint asks U.S. District Judge Eduardo Ramos to require the MTA to install elevators at the station.

"There is no justification for public entities to ignore the requirements of the ADA 28 years after its passage," U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman said in a statement. "The subway system is a vital part of New York City’s transportation system, and when a subway station undergoes a complete renovation, MTA and NYCTA must comply with its obligations to make such stations accessible to the maximum extent feasible."

In the lawsuit Berman's office joined, two disabled Bronx residents and two nonprofit groups, Bronx Independent Living Services and Disabled in Action of Metropolitan New York, alleged that the Middletown Road project violated city and federal laws.

The three-level station is located on a 4.4-mile stretch of the 6 line with 10 inaccessible stops, the plaintiffs' June 2016 complaint says. The renovation, which closed the station from October 2013 to May 2014, replaced stairs, walls, ceilings and platforms, among other things, but didn't install elevators to help disabled riders access the stop, the lawsuit says.

The Federal Transit Administration didn't buy the MTA's assessment of how feasible it would be to put in elevators, the U.S. attorney's office said. The MTA completed the project anyway and then asked for a reimbursement from the FTA, which determined elevators would have been "technically feasible," Berman's office said.

In addition to this lawsuit, the MTA has faced criticism for excluding elevators from its Enhanced Station Initiative, a package of more than 30 station renovations worth about $1 billion.

Andy Byford, the new New York City Transit president, has said accessibility is one of his top priorities for the subway system. The MTA says it's spent more than $1.7 billion to make stations accessible under the ADA. Some 118 of the city's 472 stations are accessible, the MTA says, and accessibility projects are in the pipeline at another 25.

The agency's capital program includes about $1 billion for accessibility upgrades at 19 stations and another $427 million to replace 42 existing elevators and 32 existing escalators.

"While we can’t comment on specific litigation, the pending civil lawsuit that the US Attorney joined today is nearly two years old and concerns a single station," MTA spokesman Shams Tarek said in a statement. "We are defending the case on the merits."

(Lead image: The Middletown Road station is seen in the Bronx. Image from Google Maps)