NYC needs to realize that most of the nation has no usable public transportation whatsoever. This is eerily reminiscent of how out of touch urban dwellers are with the vast country they live in, and how decisions made by democratic mob rule can affect those far from the urban dystopia.

The MTA just doesn’t care. It has just finished “fully” renovating four stations on the N & W trains in Astoria. Signs brag about wi-fi, new (slippery) granite floors, art work, but not even a thought to putting in elevators, despite there being obvious places to put them in elevated stations. Those stations were each closed for eight months.

I sit here in the Midwest, disturbed as I visualize my 85 year old father with severe back problems maneuvering the subway steps. Daddy still likes to take the Subway as it gets him quickly to where ever he needs to go. For twelve straight years I rode the subway to and from school. I watched in horror as parents; mostly women had to navigate strollers up and down subway steps. Many times a stranger would assist with a stroller. I admit I never offered to help as I too was afraid of falling and taking the stroller with me as I fell down the stairs. While New York has a vast transit system on which you can travel many miles on a single fare, it is unfortunate that it took a senseless death of a young mother to cause politicians and the MTA to realize something that every New York who rides the subway has been aware of; that when you enter a subway station carrying luggage; groceries; pushing a stroller; holding the hand of a small child; or have mobility issues, you are risking injury as you traverse all of the stairs. God help you if you were headed to or from Penn Station or Port Authority carrying luggage. After the passage of the American with Disabilities Act how did the MTA got away with so many non-accessible subway stations? No subway rider should have to do mental Ju Jitsu to figure out if he or she can exit the subway near their intended destination all while keeping their eye on the strange person in the corner muttering to themselves.

Every one in this city is just one banana peel away from being temporarily or permanently disabled, so all you currently able-bodied folks should realize that your future interests are at stake, too. Or age will catch up with you and maybe ravage your ability to roam freely. If the MTA can't or won't upgrade stations then run more buses and run them faster, with some of the technology that gives them a green light as they approach intersections and some kind of quicker way to pay when boarding - EZ pass style. To go 4 stops to my doctor the train is less than 10 minutes but a bus takes a minimum of 30 minutes - more in bad traffic. Going more than that on the bus can be an hours long event.

i realize that this is a complex issue, but i find these articles incredibly insulting. does the author really think that proximity to the nearest accessible station is a useful metric? is it not obvious that if a destination isn't accessible, then it hardly matters? as long as the vast majority of stations is inaccessible, nyc won't be practically livable for wheelchair users. 50 new elevators are hardly going to move the needle.

We do not have the money!!! The ADA was well intentioned, but at some point we need to recognize that money is finite and must be spent on efforts that benefit the MAJORITY of the public. We cannot spend large amounts to help the relatively small number of handicapped New Yorkers at the expense of the majority of NYers. It's not a matter of discrimination or callousness; it's a matter of math and economics.

The MTA is certainly not without its share of problems, but how easy do people think it is to build an elevator? They take up space -- roughly 1200 square feet footprint accounting for the elevator and mechanics. There are very few sites where such a footprint is readily available on the sidewalk to provide access below grade, and the MTA isn't permitted to simply take over private property. Then of course are subsurface conflicts -- existing platforms, cables, pipes, other subway tunnels, etc. The city is crowded in 3 dimensions. Money, too, is obviously an issue, but that's arguably the most fixable one.

As I have posted re other articles- any efforts to "fix" New York area infrastructure can be palliative at best. If we had a greenfield site, we could start from scratch and build the perfect transport network. But that's not the case. I have little confidence that the 50 elevators will be in working order (even if they ever are installed), so paratransit or Lyft/ Uber- interwoven w subsidies to those genuinely incapacitated/ handicapped wanna-be riders, may be the way to go

19th century's subway cannot accommodate the transportation needs of the 21st century. Just like the public housing project, the richest city of the world chooses to let it go because they cannot afford it.

Even if 50 new elevators are installed, they will not help much if their current level of little to no maintenance remains the norm, filthy, reeking of urine, and frequently broken down. It is incredible that a city that loves to pat itself on the back so often, cannot master the simple feat of having clean and functioning things like elevators and escalators...hardly a monumental task that is readily managed around the globe in both private and public spaces.

The Americans with Disabilities Act AND New York's building codes require all renovations, alterations, and modifications to be made accessible to current standards, no exceptions, no excuses. Yet the MTA has ignored those parts of the law. Any upgrades to a station that is not part of a 1995 consent agreement to make 100 stations accessible by 2020 have not been compliant with the mandates of the ADA and the building code. MTA thinks it is exempt, and that is false. They are willingly discriminating against people with disabilities and getting away with it because nobody is calling them out on it. Shame on them! The Department of Justice must throw the book at them.

The cruel and Kafkaesque closing of viable (but not ADA approved) elevated station entrances (looking at you Gates/Halsey/Kosciuszko) in order to avoid making them compliant has made thousands of New Yorkers miss their trains for over 20 years. Our disabled neighbors who are able to get onto the elevated J/Z train platforms via the stairs are often required to walk past a perfectly usable (but closed) entrance and walk extra blocks to the only open entrance. The official story is that entrances were closed for "safety concerns" in the 1990's (just after the ADA was passed). The real safety concern should be how a single entrance/exit is allowed for any public station. If a single exit station was proposed today, it would never be approved. In the current environment of a cash-strapped and crumbling NYC subway, perhaps the MTA should be credited when they make a station accessible, rather than penalized/sued when they do not. A Federal incentive system might create some pro-activity in making all stations accessible, rather than closing viable entrances to avoid the ADA requirements. It seems like negative reinforcement is not working.

Frankly I don't think this is fair to the NYC subway system. The tragic accident of the young mother falling down the stairs could have happened on any staircase, and in fact staircases kill many more people than sharks do. Fifty years ago there were no disabled-accessible subway stations at all, and with the largest subway system in America that never has closed hours, it's not easy to rebuild the entire system. If people really want the accessible stations to be implemented everywhere, then here are the sacrifices everyone must make: accept that every station that will be upgraded will be unusable for six months, and let the subways shut down completely from 1 am to 5 am. Boston, Washington DC, and other cities with subways all have closed hours similar to these. It seems like a reasonable sacrifice to make things easier for the one out of 16 New Yorkers who have trouble walking. But on the other hand, the complaints coming from that sixteenth, like that the paratransit specifically for them isn't reliable enough, the bus stops are exposed to the elements (like all of the outside is), and so on, indicate that maybe their main problem is that reality does not cater to their every need.

The subway is also difficult for those of us with other disabilities like hearing loss. I can't understand announcements - they sound like gibberish to me. I can't tell you how many times I failed to grasp the fact that the train is about to skip a bunch of stops because I didn't hear the announcement. Captions would take care of this issue, but they can't be bothered.

Over the past year or two, the N/W above ground stations in Astoria were redone, at great expense, and there are no elevators or escalators for handicapped people. It's clear the MTA has no concern with people with disabilities, otherwise, they would have made an effort to accomodate them with these brand new stations.