North Bronx Subway Station To Get Elevators, More Than A Decade After ADA Lawsuit

By Jose Martinez, The City

October 6, 2025

A North Bronx subway station is finally on track to have elevators installed — more than a decade after the MTA opted against adding them during a $22 million station renovation.

Transit officials broke ground Friday at the Middletown Road stop on an elevator project which grew out of a federal lawsuit that charged the MTA with violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The work at one of the northernmost stops along the No. 6 line is supposed to be completed by the fall of 2027.

“I get tired just walking up these stairs,” said Ramon Gonzalez, 78, who leaned on a cane as he entered the station Friday morning. “Elevators will make a big difference for someone like me.”

The Middletown Road station closed from October 2013 to May 2014 as the MTA replaced track structures, ceilings and staircases. But the authority chose not to install elevators at the time.

The MTA held that the stair-replacement work at Middletown Road was not enough to trigger federal accessibility requirements and that adding elevators would have been too costly. The authority regularly does station enhancements that do not require making stops ADA-compliant.

But the authority’s decision to not add elevators at the North Bronx stop led to two New Yorkers with disabilities suing the MTA in 2016. The Justice Department joined the lawsuit two years later, and a federal judge sided with the plaintiffs in 2019.

“It should have been done from the start,” said Rodolfo Diaz, one of the original plaintiffs in the case.

The 42-year-old Bronx man, a lifelong wheelchair user who has spina bifida, said that the lack of access to the station closest to his home had complicated his ability to travel on mass transit.

“I had to take different routes, so it would take longer to get to my destination,” he said.

Now riders at the Middletown Road stop — which, according to MTA data, averaged just 1,380 commuters on weekdays last year, the 399th busiest of 472 stations — will eventually be among those benefiting from an accelerated rollout on increasing accessibility.

MTA officials said those projects are now moving four times faster than previously. Janno Lieber, the authority’s chairperson and chief executive, noted that 18% of Bronx subway stations were ADA-compliant prior to the current five-year capital plan, adding that six more have since joined that list, with another nine accessibility projects now under construction.

“The MTA of the past moved at, at best, a moderate pace in complying with the ADA,” Lieber said in response to a question from THE CITY. “And we’re going at light speed, that’s what this capital program and this MTA are about.”

MTA CEO Janno Lieber announces long-overdue construction of the Middletown subway elevators. Friday, October 3, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY

Funding for the projects is being driven, in part, by congestion pricing, the Manhattan vehicle-tolling program that started in January. The MTA is also pushing to meet a legal mandate brought on by the landmark settlement of a lawsuit that requires 95% of all stations to be fully accessible by 2055.

The more than $68 billion 2025-2029 capital program calls for making at least 60 more stations accessible, a sum that would put the entire subway system past the 50% mark.

Dustin Jones, a wheelchair user who formerly lived near the Middletown Road stop, said he would have welcomed having elevators added there during the previous renovation.

“It was a slap in the face not only to me, but the whole entire neighborhood,” said Jones, who instead rode multiple buses during his commutes.

He said the station’s coming renovation — which will add a pair of elevators moving riders directly between the street and the platforms while bypassing the station mezzanine — is “better late than never.”

“It’s going to be huge for the neighborhood,” said Jones, who now lives in Manhattan. “They’re going to be able to reap the same benefits that I’ve been asking for for almost 10 years now.”

Ramon Gonzalez, 78, uses the stairs at the Middletown Road 6 train subway stop. Friday, October 3, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY

After walking down a station staircase with her suitcase in hand, Paola Ramirez said the elevators will be life-changers for many in the neighborhood.

“Just like I’m carrying this suitcase, you could have a mother with children in a stroller or older people with canes,” Ramirez, 27, said in Spanish. “This work should have been done a long time ago, but I’m glad it’s finally going to happen.”

This press release was produced by The City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.