We Have Recently Made Changes to Our Website, If you are unable to find something Specific, Please Search Below

Web onlypunjab.com

Disabled Riders Rail MTA Over Token Booth Closings
Publish Date : 12/5/2004 9:39:00 AM   Source : Culture and Community News

Last Thursday morning (November 18th), the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board voted to close all token booths in the New York City Subway system, a highly controversial decision which has outraged union officials, riders and elected officials, but the group most directly impacted by the decision – Subway riders who use wheelchairs. Riders with disabilities face the daunting task of only being able to utilize nine percent of the Subway system, but now with the loss of token booths, they say that their rides will get even worse…
“Without somebody to buzz you out of the station, you could literally be stuck in the system for weeks”, said Michael Harris, a Brooklyn native who serves as Chair of the New York State Young Democrats Disability Issues Caucus. Harris uses a wheelchair and rides the Subway system several times a week. He is referring to the service gates, which are the only way in or out of the Subway system for riders with disabilities, who are unable to enter or exit the system through standard turnstiles. In an attempt to mitigate the problem, which significantly limits the ability of disabled riders to independently utilize the system, the MTA unveiled the AutoGate MetroCard, which according to the Authority’s website, “allows [riders with disabilities to use the AutoGate turnstiles that are installed in many of our accessible stations”, thus allowing them to more independently navigate the system. However riders say that the AutoGates constantly break down or are intentionally disabled by MTA personnel.

“The AutoGate system is a wonderful concept, when it works, which is less than twenty percent of the time”, said Harris. “When the AutoGate is not working, the only way for a disabled rider to enter or exit the Subway system is to be buzzed in and out by a token booth clerk”, he added.

Harris isn’t the only disabled rider to complain about the AutoGate system. Edith Prentiss, president of the Manhattan BoroughWide InterAgency Council on Aging and a resident of Washington Heights says, “The AutoGate reader at my home station is out more often than not. It is usually jammed with regular MetroCards.” Both Prentiss and Harris have AutoGate cards, but both are quick to point out that not all disabled riders do. In order to obtain an AutoGate card one must fill out a lengthy application (see http://mta.info/nyct/fare/pdf/disabled.pdf), get it signed by a physician, then get the form notarized and submit a passport photograph, then wait approximately six to eight weeks to receive the card in the mail, a task that only a regular Subway rider would go through. “What about tourists with disabilities?” asks Harris, “Shouldn’t they be able to ride the Subways?” Furthermore, both riders have had their AutoGate cards stolen by guess who; the MTA. “It just sucked it in and never gave it back,” said Prentiss, describing the incident this summer when she put her card into the slot to exit the system and never saw it again. According to the MTA, a replacement card should be received within seven to ten days of reporting it lost or stolen. Both Harris and Prentiss say that they waited much longer. “It was more like a month”, said Harris, who is presently on his fourth AutoGate card in a little over a year.

What is worse is that not even every station has an AutoGate; Penn Station on the Eighth Avenue line (A, C, E lines) is just one example. So how exactly does the MTA plan to resolve the issue of the service gates? They are the first to admit that they don’t know. According to an article in Thursday’s Daily News, “Currently, clerks buzz riders with packages and strollers through service gates. The TA has not yet figured out how to handle such situations once no booths are manned, a spokesman said last night.”

After reading that, Prentiss responded, “It is so typical for the MTA to decide to remove agents from a place every Subway passenger know to find one, in the booth and not to have a plan as to how the swing gate will be opened to allow access.”

Disabled riders also point out that while for somebody with a large package the service gate is extremely helpful, for them it is a necessity. "I don't mean to downplay the ability of people with strollers and large bundles to use the service gate", explained Harris, "they do and should be able to use it. I am simply saying that for a rider using a wheelchair it is the ONLY way in and out of the system. You simply can't lift yourself over a turnstile."

Even as the decision to close token booths was being made official, the problem for disabled riders was quite apparent. Harris, who was at Thursday’s board meeting, just four blocks from the accessible Subway station at Grand Central Terminal says that when he left the meeting he went straight to the Subway, where he found that the AutoGate wasn’t working, fortunately for him there was a token booth clerk sitting right there who was able to buzz him in. When he got to his destination, Harris wasn’t so lucky. Upon arriving at Canal Street, one of a handful of “unmanned” stations (another example is the WTC Station, where both Harris and Prentiss have had to wait for nearly an hour simply to exit the Subway system), he once again discovered the AutoGate to be out of service. This time, with no clerk to buzz him through, Harris pressed two different emergency call buttons and then watched as hundreds of riders filed through the turnstiles during his twenty-five minute wait to be buzzed out from a central booth. “When I first started riding the Subways I was upset about how few stations were accessible. I soon discovered that those were the least of my worries; the bigger problem is when those stations that are supposed to be fully accessible are not. Elevators are constantly breaking down, the AutoGates rarely work and I won’t even talk about the non-accessible, accessible station at Atlantic Avenue”, he says. “It is very frustrating.”

In addition to the decision to close the booths, riders also criticize the manner in which it was made. At Thursday’s meeting MTA Executive Director Katherine Lapp, in reiterating her proposal to raise fares, promised that “service will remain unaffected.” “One week the MTA is holding public hearings on a proposal to close 144 token booths and then all of a sudden, without any warning they announce that within the next two to three years every booth in the City will be closed is bad enough”, said Harris. “But for an MTA official to say that there are will be no service cuts and to then announce what is perhaps the largest service cut in the history of the Subway system, is simply inexcusable!”

In a letter to disabled riders posted on the Authority’s website, MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow writes, “The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is committed to providing quality rail and bus service to customers in New York City and State and suburban Connecticut. In the last several years, we have worked hard to make our public transit system increasingly accessible to members of our community who have physical or cognitive disabilities.”

How do Prentiss and Harris respond to that? With the same word that Kalikow used to respond to Harris’ complaints of shoddy service during the public comment period at Thursday’s meeting, “laughable.”

Disabled riders say that they are planning a demonstration to show how the elimination of token booth clerks will directly affect them for sometime in the coming weeks and vow to make their voices heard. “If the MTA’s decision to eliminate token booths and thus attempt to eliminate disabled riders isn’t motivation to speak out, I don’t know what is,” said Harris. “People with disabilities want to ride the railroad, instead the MTA keeps railroading us.”

Harris and Prentiss encourage members of the media to ride the Subway system with them, so that they may witness firsthand the difficulties faced by disabled riders.