Straight to the top: new nonstop elevators to speed subway accessibility coverage

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The New York Metropolitan Transit Authority is ramping up installations of elevators that will move riders directly between streets and platforms — skipping mezzanine levels altogether.

The elevated Woodhaven Boulevard station on the J/Z lines in Queens last month became the first stop where elevators bypass mezzanines to link riders directly with subway service in both directions.

The shift, according to MTA officials, is designed to save the transit agency hundreds of millions of dollars in elevator installation and upkeep while also advancing toward a federal court-mandated goal of making 95% of stations accessible to people with disabilities by 2055.

Officials said that 19 more direct-to-platform projects are presently in the works, including 46th Street-Bliss Street along the No. 7 line in Queens and Church Avenue (B/Q) and 36th Street (D/N/R) in Brooklyn.

“It reduces the amount of elevators we need to build and maintain, the amount of power and machine equipment that’s associated with it, the need to basically rebuild these old mezzanines to be able to hold an elevator,” Jamie Torres-Springer, president of MTA Construction & Development, told THE CITY. “All of it is much more efficient and saving us a ton of money.”

For Woodhaven Boulevard alone, officials said the savings amounted to $40 million.

“That money goes right back into making other improvements within the subway system for our riders,” Torres-Springer said.

In stations with mezzanines, one set of subway elevators typically transport riders between the street and an intermediate level, where other lifts beyond the turnstiles then move commuters to and from the platforms. 

Sasha Blair-Goldensohn, a wheelchair user and disability rights advocate who commutes by subway, said the multi-tiered layout can be especially tricky for riders with limited mobility if an elevator on the mezzanine level goes out of service. He noted the direct-to-platform route would likely save time.

“With two elevators, even if they’re both working, it can be a circuitous or confusing route and a long wait for each one,” Blair-Goldensohn said.

The MTA’s new approach curbs the need to install more equipment on the mezzanine level, but does call for putting in turnstiles on platforms near elevators connecting with the street. It also requires cooperation from the city Department of Transportation, which must approve projects on DOT space.

“Since many of these projects are on sidewalks or other DOT property, we have reviewed more than 70 elevator installations in recent years, taking a comprehensive look to make sure our surrounding street network accommodates these critical upgrades,” a DOT spokesperson said in a statement to THE CITY. 

Jessica Murray, of the Rise and Resist Elevator Action Group, an advocacy organization that frequently criticizes the MTA on accessibility issues, said the changes could be “huge” for the subway system and riders with disabilities who may encounter out-of-service lifts.

“If you have only one street-to-mezzanine elevator, if that one goes out, the whole station goes out,” Murray said. “So if you have the two that go directly to the platform, one can go out, but you can still travel in the other direction.”

Currently, 150 stations, or about 32% of the 472 systemwide, are fully accessible — up from less than 25% in 2019. The MTA credits the increase, in part, to the agency placing a greater emphasis on accessibility throughout the 114-year-old system and being able to do more elevator projects as ridership plummeted during the pandemic.

The MTA’s nearly $55 billion 2020-2024 capital plan for systemwide improvements includes more than $5 billion toward making 68 stations fully accessible. Of those, 23 are supposed to have accessibility upgrades paid for by the congestion pricing vehicle-tolling initiative that launched Jan 5.

The proposed $68.4 capital plan for 2025-2029 calls for an additional 60 subway stations to come into full compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act via the addition of elevators or ramps. However, the plan still faces a $33 billion funding gap and has yet to be approved by a state review panel.

If the MTA is able to complete the next set of accessibility upgrades mapped out in the next capital plan, that would put it more than halfway to meeting its goal of most stations being compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

“That’s where we want to be,” MTA Chairperson and CEO Janno Lieber said at an agency board meeting last week. “It’s not 100%, that’s our goal, but it’s a different place from where we were.”

As part of its accessibility efforts, the MTA also plans to build more street-level station entrances to elevated stops with elevators, though DOT must approve those plans.

The 95% accessibility mark emerged from a judge’s 2023 approval of the settlement of a long-standing class-action lawsuit filed by New Yorkers with disabilities. As part of the settlement, New York City Transit, the MTA division that operates the subway and Staten Island Railway, agreed to set aside 15% of its share of future capital plans for accessibility work.

At the Woodhaven Boulevard station on the J/Z, riders with strollers and limited mobility said they have quickly come to appreciate the two new elevators, which opened Jan. 24.

Rocio Lopez, 41, who rode one of the new elevators to the platform with her 1-year-daughter in a stroller, said she has begun using her local subway stop after usually relying on buses.

“Now, it’s a possibility,” she told THE CITY in Spanish. “Before, I just avoided the subway if I had my daughter with me, because it’s just complicated to carry a stroller up and down stairs.”

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