Ten days ago, WNYC’s Alisa Chang reported on the stirrings of legal action from disabled riders who believed they were unfairly impacted by the MTA’s June service cuts. As legal services groups and disabilities rights advocates worked to prepare filings, the WNYC story served to put the MTA on notice of yet another legal challenge to their service cuts plans.
Earlier this week, three disabled riders along with two non-profit organizations — Disabled In Action of Metropolitan New York and The Brooklyn Center for the Independence of the Disabled Inc. — allegedly filed suit in federal court in Brooklyn, formally lodging a complaint against the MTA’s service cuts. The filing, which I cannot find on the Federal PACER and have been unable to get from Legal Services NYC or the two other named legal groups, is said to claim that disabled riders were disparately impacted by the service cuts. The plaintiffs have sued both the MTA and New York City Transit and are requesting a permanent injunction reversing the service cuts and restoring paratransit services.
When I track down the complaint, I’ll post it here. For now, we must rely on the the organization’s press release for details:
The lawsuit challenges city-wide service cuts implemented by the MTA and NYCT beginning on June 27, 2010, cutting eighty-nine bus lines. These service cuts have forced transit passengers either to travel a greater distance to an alternate bus route or to travel by subway rather than by bus. For Plaintiffs, however, both of these options are impossible, thus imposing a greater hardship on people with disabilities than on people without disabilities. And they cannot rely on the City’s already overburdened paratransit system – Access-A-Ride – because rather than ensuring that additional resources are devoted to Access-A-Ride in anticipation of the increase in demand occasioned by the reduction in bus service, the Defendants have instituted or approved significant cuts to the system. There are approximately 138,000 individuals approved for Access-A-Ride and disabled riders made 5.8 million trips on Access-A-Ride in 2008; the June 27th transit cuts are estimated to eliminate 26,000 trips on Access-A-Ride each year…
The plaintiffs’ lawsuit asserts that the Defendants’ actions violate both the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The ADA mandates that public entities may not discriminate against people with disabilities and may not deny them the benefits of services provided to people without disabilities. And the law makes it clear that it is “discrimination” for a public entity which operates a fixed route system to fail to provide paratransit services that are “comparable to the level of designated public transportation services provided to individuals without disabilities using such system.” This includes response time, which also must be comparable, to the extent practicable, to the level of designated public transportation services provided to individuals without disabilities. 42 U.S.C. section 12143(a) (2). Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 prohibits discrimination against a protected class by any program which receives federal assistance.
Without reading the pleadings, I can’t assess the plaintiff’s chances of success, but considering the contours of the ADA and New York City Transit-specific provisions, it will be tough for them to secure a permanent injunction that reverses the entire slate of service cuts.
Still, that won’t stop the lawyers from arguing the case. Jane Greengold Stevens from the New York Legal Assistance Group claims that the MTA must beef up its Access-a-Ride options if the cuts are not restored. “If the bus lines or even some of the bus lines are not restored,” Stevens said, “then they’re going to need to not only rescind the cuts to Access-A-Ride, but also actually augment it in order to meet the need created by the elimination of the buses.”
Even the borough’s politicians — the same ones who won’t provide money for the MTA to offer what they feel are adequate services for disabled riders — are getting in on the act. Councilwoman Letitia James hosted a rally in support of the lawsuit, and Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz voiced his beliefs. “Some of these routes may not be the most heavily used,” he said, “but they are absolute lifelines for riders with disabilities or who are elderly. There is simply no reasonable way for people with mobility and accessibility issues who cannot take the subway—especially considering many stations are not ADA-compliant—to get around with cuts to these vital bus routes and Access-A-Ride.”
As sympathetic as I am to the plight of the city’s disabled riders, this is not a lawsuit that will be easy to win.
13 comments
“These service cuts have forced transit passengers either to travel a greater distance to an alternate bus route or to travel by subway rather than by bus. For Plaintiffs, however, both of these options are impossible, thus imposing a greater hardship on people with disabilities than on people without disabilities.”
In other cities EVERY STATION has escalators and elevators running between street level and the platform. But of course NYC has to be literally DECADES behind the times in terms of implementing such simply things that people elsewhere take for-granted. It’s absolutely absurd.
NYC isn’t that different from cities with similarly-aged systems. Boston’s system is no where near 100% handicap accessible, for instance.
http://www.mbta.com/uploadedFi....._map-5.pdf
This system map shows that a significant percentage of stations aren’t accessible. Granted, NYC could and should do better, but it’s not off on some island.
Chris, those other cities tend to be those that started building subways only after they passed accessibility laws. Cities that built subways early, such as New York and London, have shitty accessibility. Cities that started very late, such as Singapore, are 100% accessible or close to it. Cities that started in the middle are somewhere in the middle.
Don’t you realize that is would be virtually IMPOSSIBLE to make the entire subway system 100% ADA compliant. In addition, adding elevators isn’t cheap to put in a subway station.
Disabled rights groups have every right to complain.
How is this discrimination? It sounds like it affects everyone pretty heavily. These disability-advocacy groups expect the MTA to maintain paratransit service at the expense of standard service, which is unrealistic. They should be equally affected by the cuts, and it sounds like they are. It often takes me an hr to get places in midtown or north, and I know from experience that it takes 30 minutes to drive that far on the FDR (at least during off-peak hrs when Ive driven). Even if the Access-A-Ride vehicle is 30 minutes late, the total time is still comparable.
The problem is higher up the food (money) chain, not MTA. Without the proper funding, MTA, and other transit agencies, cannot function properly. Put the blame higher up.
What about the mind-blowing cost of Access-a-Ride, which threatens to take down the MTA’s entire operating budget? The MTA is now in the business of providing virtually free livery cab service to every old or mildly disabled person in NY. Does anyone have any idea how expensive that is? If the MTA doesn’t get a handle on the Access-a-Ride budget (currently half a billion dollars per year), subway and bus riders will suffer reduced, and inferior, service. I guess that’s fine with Marty Markowitz and the other politicians cited in this story, who care more about fishing for the votes of special interest groups (especially the elderly, who vote in disproportionate numbers), than in the health of the entire system. For that matter, why is paratransit the MTA’s responsibility at all? The MTA should be in the business of mass transit, not door to door service by appointment. If the feds think paratransit is such a good idea: let them pay for it.
Toronto’s TTC subway is somewhat newer than systems in New York or Boston. Not only that, it is connected to numerous office buildings, malls & the underground Path network. Yet it’s not totally accessable at this time.
Canadas equivalent to the ADA is behind us by a few years wich I found to be quite a surprise. Although they are making some progress be it slow & steady.
The lawas are much different in Canada than in the United States.
ChrisC: Every other city has a smaller system and fewer stations to change.
Anyone else: Perhaps the plaintiffs should take Albany to court over reducing the budget so dramatically. It’s not like the MTA can do it alone, it seems.
“Toronto’s TTC subway is somewhat newer than systems in New York or Boston. Not only that, it is connected to numerous office buildings, malls & the underground Path network. Yet it’s not totally accessable at this time.”
Really? I live in Toronto now and I disagree with you. I’ve yet to see a single station that wasn’t handicap accessible. Granted not every entrance is handicap-accessible, but from what I’ve seen every station has at least one handicap-accessible entrance. The station beside my apartment for example has five entrances, one of which is handicap-accessible. Please enlighten me, and tell me which stations aren’t accessible. I’ll go check them out myself to verify.
It’s not a new system either. It dates from 1955, long before such laws were in place.
ChrisC, most of Toronto’s subway stations are inaccessible:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.....essibility
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