Sheppard is pleased to announce that a settlement agreement was signed today between a coalition of disability rights advocates and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to ensure that New York City subway riders receive advance notice and information for alternative routes when subway elevators are not working.
The settlement marks another important step toward improving subway accessibility through needed communications improvements that will impact over a quarter of the city’s population.
“Today’s agreement is another important step in ensuring that the disability community in New York has access to public transportation,” said Sheppard pro bono partner Dan Brown. “We have spent almost a decade working to achieve true access for the disabled community, and I commend the MTA for this meaningful outcome.”
Sheppard has partnered with Disability Rights Advocates (DRA) for the last 10 years on the underlying litigation that wound through federal district court and the court of appeals.
Most recently, in 2024 a federal judge found that the MTA had not provided enough evidence to determine whether its current elevator outage notifications or its training of MTA employees were enough to accommodate riders with disabilities who confront elevator outages. This settlement now resolves those issues. Among other things, the settlement requires:
Physical and digital signage, including:
- Alternate Accessible Travel Information signs posted directly on or adjacent to all Accessibility Elevators, indicating additional available routes, a QR code to the Elevator & Escalator Status Webpage, and information on how to contact a station agent for assistance.
- Real-time elevator status on digital Customer Information Center screens.
- Street-level physical signs indicating long-term elevator outages or those due to capital replacement projects at that station; and when elevator repair personnel are on site repairing an elevator that is out of service for any reason.
Spoken announcements, including:
- Platform announcements every 15 minutes indicating any long-term elevator outages (lasting 90 days or more) or those due to capital replacement projects up to one Accessible Station ahead in the direction of the trains arriving at the platform.
- On-board announcements on subway trains regarding Accessibility Elevator Outages confirmed to last longer than 14 days at least two accessible stations ahead in the direction in which that train is traveling.
Telephone assistance, including:
- A 511 customer service phone number for information concerning Accessibility Elevator outages and accessible rerouting assistance.
- Real-time outage information on the MTA’s website and mobile application regarding: (a) the status of all Accessibility Elevators at any given time; (b) all affected subway lines at the impacted station; (c) the reason for any Accessibility Elevator outage; (d) the estimated return to service time; and (e) possible alternate accessible routes from the affected Accessible Station.
- Email and text alerts advising subscribing customers of changes in the status of the customer’s selected Accessibility Elevators.
Read the full settlement agreement here.
Read DRA’s press release here.
The underlying litigation dates back to 2017 when Sheppard and DRA filed this case and another class action lawsuit in state court, on the same day, alleging that the overwhelming inaccessibility of the current subway system violated the New York City Human Rights Law. That case settled with the MTA agreeing to make 95% of the subway stations accessible.