NYC Subway System Discriminates Against the Disabled, Class Action Says

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A group of disabled residents and disability advocates have filed a class action lawsuit alleging the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has failed to make the New York City subway system accessible to people with disabilities.

The plaintiffs assert that New York City’s subway system has the lowest accessibility rate among the United States’ 10 biggest transit systems. According to the class action lawsuit, New York City’s subway systems have only an “abysmal” 24 percent accessibility rate.

To make matters worse, the defendants fail to maintain the elevators that are already in operation in the subway system, the NYC subway accessibility class action lawsuit states.

“Riders with mobility disabilities routinely face frequent elevator outages,” the plaintiffs say in the NYC subway class action lawsuit. “These often occur without notice and last as long as several months.”

“In many cases, Defendants provide no warning of the outages in the form of signage or audio announcements,” the plaintiffs continue. “When elevator outages occur, Defendants provide no alternate accommodations to ensure that people that require elevator access can get to their destinations.”

According to the NYC subway class action lawsuit, there are an average of at least 25 elevator outages per day.

Nearly 6 million people use the New York City subway system each day, the class action lawsuit states. The plaintiffs say the subway is an important transportation source for people who live in New York City. Access to the subway system is critical for individuals with mobility disabilities because most of them do not own cars and cannot always use ridesharing systems because of those systems’ limited accessibility options.

In the NYC subway accessibility class action lawsuit, the plaintiffs describe the troubles they have experienced when faced with unplanned outages. One plaintiff says he has had to “engage in the dangerous and humiliating act of asking strangers to carry him and his wheelchair up or down stairs.”

Another plaintiff reports that he has had to cancel or alter subway trips due to unexpected outages. The plaintiffs assert that their experiences are typical of New Yorkers with mobility disabilities who try to use the NYC subway system.

The NYC subway accessibility class action lawsuit asserts claims for violations of Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the New York City Human Rights Law.

“These laws prevent public transit providers from denying people with disabilities the benefits, services, accommodations and facilities they provide to the non-disabled public,” the NYC subway accessibility class action lawsuit explains. “They also specifically require that public transit providers maintain, in operative condition, the features of transit facilities that are required to make such facilities readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities.”

The plaintiffs are not seeking monetary damages. Instead, they are asking the transit system to implement better procedures for elevator maintenance and to create a long-term plan to increase accessibility for individuals with mobility disabilities.

The plaintiffs are represented by Michelle Caiola, Rebecca Rodgers, Jelena Kolic, Sidney Wolinsky and Stuart Seaborn of Disability Rights Advocates and Daniel Brown of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP.

The New York City Subway Accessibility Class Action Lawsuit is Center for the Independence of the Disabled, New York, et al. v. Metropolitan Transportation Authority, et al., Case No. 1:17-cv-02990-KBF, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.