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New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

nytimes.com

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Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#101

Post by notmtaemployee »

baron816 wrote: post #11
covercash wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something like this maybe? http://philly.curbed.com/archives/2014/10/23/korean-company-...

I think it's crazy that the MTA hasn't already done this. Not only would it save a lot of lives, but it would also allow the platform to be climate controlled. You have no idea how many times I've sat there underground for 30+ minutes in sub-freezing or 100+ degree heat.

Platform doors are generally installed when you install modern signalling (CBTC) onto a line, which much of the NYC subway does not have. CBTC equipped trains can operate under Automatic Train Operation (ATO) meaning that trains can be made to always stop at the same location on the platform.

Furthermore, platform doors require you to have trains that have the doors in the same positions on the car body, which much of the newer subway fleet (R142,R188 & R143,R160,R179) has but the legacy fleet does not. This issue get compounded even more where multiple lines intersect (which is often due to the NYC subway's unique connectedness) requiring that certain stations would need to support 3 or 4 different car classes.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#102

Post by ethbro »

r0naa wrote: post #94
matthewmacleod wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember that it's not just people in wheelchairs who benefit from accessibility though. The elderly, injured infirm, people with small children etc. also find accessibility helpful. Modern accessibility policy is focused in a large part around allowing people with accessibility requirement to live as normal a life as possible. It's not going to change overnight, but by making sure that all new construction and refur…

>Remember that it's not just people in wheelchairs who benefit from accessibility though. In addition to that, I wager there's value in extending the current infrastructure so as to not ostracize disabled people even further.

I think grandparent comment's point was that at some point, greater good for disabled people can be delivered by specifically helping them rather than re-engineering the world to fit them. Considering that each has a concrete price tag attached to it.

The "wheelchair that can climb stairs" vs "adding ramps everywhere" comparison.

I feel like in the past the latter made more economic sense, but at some point technology might tip the balance the other way.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#103

Post by stuaxo »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #54
Mythanar wrote: post #39

I highly suspect it is plain cheaper (and more convenient) to just subsidize private car rides for disabled people than making entire transit infrastructure in huge city to account for them. Better yet, take the money that government would otherwise spend on building all the wheelchair accomodations, and just distribute that between wheelchair users. I am sure many of them would prefer that over subway improvements w…

Remember that it's not just people in wheelchairs who benefit from accessibility though. The elderly, injured infirm, people with small children etc. also find accessibility helpful. Modern accessibility policy is focused in a large part around allowing people with accessibility requirement to live as normal a life as possible. It's not going to change overnight, but by making sure that all new construction and refur…

Were managing to convert the underground in London to be wheelchair friendly, you guys need to make a start too.

Start with new stations and ones a few apart and work your way in.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#104

Post by stuaxo »

kalleboo wrote: post #100
slowandlow wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see too many elevators and hopefully it gets fixed with the push the governor is making towards modernizing stations across NYC. It's important to remember that a lot of the stations, in Lower Manhattan especially, are way too small (4-5 foot wide platforms with 2 stairwells). I don't see elevators happening at those stations. A lot of these smaller platforms are connected other small platforms via stairs (th…

They could install stair lifts?

In London (Clapham Junction at least) they have tracked vehicles that can take a wheelchair up the Victorian stairs

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#105

Post by coddingtonbear »

pinaceae wrote: post #58

Vienna retro-fitted every subway station with wheelchair and stroller compatible elevators. Don't discount the latter, so much easier for parents to use the subway that way. It totally can be done. The US carved off a slice of every sidewalk to allow for ramps for wheelchairs, nationwide.

Your might not be from the US, so I can understand how you might have such an impression, but wheelchair ramps, although universal for new construction, are usually not installed until either new construction occurs nearby or the sidewalk itself needs to be replaced unless a high traffic street. For example, although I think the installation of wheelchair ramps on sidewalks has been going on for at least 30 years, probably only about half of the curbs in my relatively-urban neighborhood have ramps.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#106

Post by stuaxo »

metaphorm wrote: post #65
grardb wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for how often this happens? I can't find anything specifically about subway pushers in NYC. As far as I can tell, it's a very rare occurrence. That being said, I see fairly high numbers of deaths in general, mainly attributed to suicides and alcohol/drug use. How would this barrier work? Would it withdraw once the train pulled up or something?

have you ever seen the tube system in London? it's a fully blocking barrier with a set of sliding doors that lines up precisely with the doors of the train cars when they pull in to the station. that's probably the ideal solution, but not practical for New York because the system was never designed with precision stopping points on the platform in mind. there's a margin of error that is at least a meter or so in eith…

Only on new lines with straight platforms. Older ones are almost all on curves, a guy in the sliding doors business told me they looked into but the cost was too high as each station is on a different circumference bend so they would all be custom jobs.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#107

Post by notmtaemployee »

slowandlow wrote: post #30
virtuexru wrote: post #15

Yet they are slated to raise the prices again next year. It's already $2.75 for a regular swipe. FeelsBadMan.

MTA runs on a deficit so yeah like any business they need to raise prices. Sadly :(

The MTA actually doesn't run a deficit, both their operational and capital budgets are fully funded.

The MTA overall is pretty fiscally responsible (im sure you can always find more waste to cut, but that's true of any organization) but is sadly overly reliant on debt to fund its capital program because the city, state and federal no longer really fund transit. This has lead to to about 15-20% of its operational budget to be dedicated to debt service, ie. money not being used for actual transit operation. Furthermore each year the money from the various emergency and rainy day funds in the operational budge that are not spent, are used to make additional contributions (above what is already budgeted each year) to the various befit and pensions obligations.

Unfortunately this good fiscal responsibility also means that the governor can screw the MTA out 65 million $ and get away with it because they can manage the loss. http://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/03/14/state-assembly-wants-t...

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#109

Post by pavel_lishin »

nemo44x wrote: post #78
guruz wrote: post #33

What about mothers/fathers with baby buggies?

You carry the buggy up the stairs together and if you're on your own a stranger will help you. It's very common to see this (and to help people when you see they need help) in NYC. Beside our reputation, we're a friendly bunch here.

It's also true of wheelchairs.

My wife and I helped a man in a wheelchair up some stairs in Brooklyn, since his alternative was taking the train about five stops down to an elevator-equipped station, then getting on a bus, and coming right back. At that time of night, we optimistically estimated an hour for him to do so... or about 60 seconds for us to carry him up.

Re: New York Has a Great Subway, If You’re Not in a Wheelchair

#110

Post by ufmace »

nkoren wrote: post #82
ufmace wrote: post #72

This article paints a pretty negative view of it, but looking at the numbers, that might not be the case: 425 stations total 92 stations accessible Boston has 53 stations, with "90% wheelchair accessible", sounds like 48 to me. So "lousy" NYC has almost double the number of wheelchair accessible stations as "great" Boston, and 8 times the total number of stations. Sadly, retrofitting more elevators into existing stat…

> So "lousy" NYC has almost double the number of wheelchair accessible stations as "great" Boston, and 8 times the total number of stations. That's comparing apples to watermelons. Boston has a population of 650,000; New York, 8.5 million. So in Boston there is one accessible station per 13,500 residents. In New York, one per 92,400 residents. (The total residents per station is much more comparable, at 12.2k and 20k…

Thanks, that's an interesting calculation, and I didn't take population into account. The 650k to 8.5M sounds like a higher ratio than I'd expect though. If we take the MSA from rrdharan's post, NYC metro population is 4x greater rather than 13x with your numbers. If we use those numbers, then we'd get accessible pairs per thousand residents of 0.2093 for NYC, and 0.2256 for Boston, which makes Boston about 8% better.

I'm not sure how valid that is though, since at least for the NYC area, that MSA population is for the tri-state area, which is served by a number of other rail lines, and the majority of which isn't directly accessible to the NYC MTA system that those numbers are for. I don't know as much about the Boston area, but seems like a fair guess that those 5M people mostly don't have direct access to the Boston city transit, and may or may not be served by various other transit systems. Can any Bostonians confirm or deny?

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