This is a hopeful sign: the head of the TA tried the travel route for people in wheelchairs and experienced what they were complaining about!

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=5&aid=72078

TA Chief Joins Head Of Disabled Riders Coalition For Morning Commute
July 27, 2007

Moving through the city's subway system may be easy for most people, but if you're in a wheelchair, that's not necessarily the case.

Transit Authority President Howard Roberts and Assemblyman Micah Kellner learned that firsthand Friday, when they joined the head of the Disabled Riders Coalition on his morning commute.

They traveled from Michael Harris' home in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn to Manhattan. Their nearly two-hour-long trip involved a long walk to a bus stop, a bus ride to an accessible subway station, and travel on five subway lines.

The same trip would take any other person about a half-hour. Both Roberts and Harris see today's trip as the beginning of an new dialogue between disabled riders and the TA.

"It gave me the opportunity to go directly to the top and share some of the barriers that we spent years criticizing the TA over – to go to straight to the top and say here are our problems, here are things you can do to try and resolve them,” said Harris, executive director of the Disabled Riders Coalition.

“I found myself realizing that not every elevator in the system today is working, and that it would be a complete and total barrier to anybody in a wheelchair,” said Roberts.

The trip comes a day after the 17th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. :wheelchair: :wheelchair:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gnBe8ndJS-JUTfM6dRh0NhIeQwyAD8SKEJH00
Disabled Passengers Struggle With Subway

By VERENA DOBNIK – 6 hours ago

NEW YORK (AP) — For handicapped New Yorkers, a trip aboard the city's subway system means confronting a series of obstacles — and indignities.

First, they must be at a station with an elevator that descends to the platform. In places, it's so narrow that a wheelchair rolls just inches from the edge of electrified tracks. And once the train arrives, the wheelchair often gets stuck while crossing the gap between the platform and the subway car.

Navigating the nation's largest mass transit system by wheelchair "takes a certain kind of emotional stamina," said Michael Harris, an advocate for the disabled who uses a wheelchair himself. "It's physically and emotionally draining."

Disabled passengers report the same difficulties in several other large cities, and some have sued transit agencies for improvements.

Because of a lawsuit, Chicago officials installed devices that make it easier for wheelchair users to get on and off trains. In Boston, disabled train and bus riders sued over broken elevators and inaccessible stations, leading the city's transit agency to spend more than $300 million on improvements.

"It's not something that happens overnight, but they're moving ahead diligently," said Bill Henning, director of the Boston Center for Independent Living. He said the transit system was now "dedicated to improvements and trying to change the culture of an entity that hadn't given this the highest priority or quite understood how to be handicap accessible."

In New York, only about 60 of the city's 486 stations are accessible to wheelchairs, and about 40 more are under construction to become accessible.

"We're more than 100 years old, and we're trying to retro-fit stations with elevators and ramps. Space constraints are a big factor," said James Anyansi, a spokesman for New York City Transit, acknowledging that Harris is probably right in describing New York's system as the worst in the country for handicap-accessibility.

Harris, 23, recently demonstrated the pitfalls of an underground ride by wheelchair.

He left his lower Manhattan office near City Hall, heading uptown to Herald Square at West 34th Street — a trip that normally takes about 10 minutes on one subway line from the station across the street. But the station is not wheelchair-accessible.

So Harris powered up his motorized wheelchair and rolled to a different station, where he caught an uptown train to Grand Central Terminal. From there, he rolled down the sidewalk to another station and boarded a train for his destination.

Instead of 10 minutes, the trip lasted about 40.

When there are problems with access, Anyansi said, transit officials post information on station signs and on a Web site, and they update a hot line four times a day. Transit employees are also supposed to be available to answer questions.

In addition, a van can be reserved ahead of time to pick up a passenger at a specified address — at $2 a shared ride.

But Harris said there are times, especially during the night, when wheelchair users have no one to ask for help if they encounter problems, such as a broken elevator.

Harris and a dozen volunteers run an advocacy group he started called the Disabled Riders Coalition. It offers intricate maps of the system on its Web site, with both personal and online suggestions on how to move around.

He and another volunteer have set up an 800 number they answer around the clock, and it's hooked up to their cell phones and pagers. He has studied maps, charts, diagrams and blueprints of every station, and he's tested the rides himself.

"I know the system pretty much like the back of my hand," said Harris, who suffers from a neurological disorder that causes constant, painful muscle spasms.

NYC Transit President Howard Roberts Jr. has joined Harris on several subway rides during which they examined what's wrong and how to fix it.

"Under the new leadership, they are starting to pay attention," Harris said. "For years, we were ignored, and now we are finally getting the attention we should have gotten many years back."
On the Net:

* Disabled Riders Coalition: http://www.disabledriders.org
* New York City Transit: http://www.mta.info/nyct/