Despite the difficult financial situation in the new year, the MTA has created a new top position: Chief Accessibility Officer, who reports directly to Chairman Pat Foye. The new role will be filled by Quemuel Arroyo, the former head of accessibility at the NYC Department of Transportation.
Former New York City Transit President Andy Byford created a similar position in 2018 with the first senior adviser on system-wide accessibility, and hired Alex Elegudin to report to him. Arroyo, which uses a wheelchair, will be responsible for accessibility in the MTA, including Metro North, Long Island Railroad and Transit.
Arroyo’s job requires him to be a balance as an advocate for the accessibility community, which often requires nothing less than full accessibility, and a representative for MTA leadership, with all its financial and physical limitations.
But unlike its predecessor, which supported Byford’s ambitious accessibility plan to ensure riders would never be more than two metro stops from a station with working lifts, Arroyo said the MTA should think of alternatives, such as ramps.
“I do not think at all to say that every station does not require elevators is controversial,” Arroyo told Gothamist. “Elevators break, that’s just the reality, and I know ramps never break.”
Currently, about 29 percent of the MTA’s 472 subway stations are accessible, or 135 stations (although nine of these are only partially accessible). The MTA hoped to create 70 new stations by 2024 before pandemic losses forced the agency to draw up its capital plan.
The MTA has looked at disasters in the past, but in Manhattan there is often not enough space anyway.
Advocates are not against Arroyo’s plan, but say they will continue to create a metro network that is fully accessible to all. “It’s a civil rights issue and I think people with disabilities deserve the same access to the subway as people without disabilities,” said Jessica Murray, chair of the New York City Transit Accessibility Advisory Committee and an organizer with the group Rise and Resist Elevator Action Group.
This is also a legal issue.
‘The MTA is fighting our lawsuits as if they’ve never heard of the American With Disabilities Act. And as if they’ve never heard of the New York City Human Rights Law, ”said Joe Rappaport, executive director of the Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled (BCID) and a plaintiff in three lawsuits against the MTA over the lack of accessibility.
“They have not made any actual effort to resolve the lawsuits at all, and they are trying to drag it out forever, as far as anyone can know,” he added. Rappaport said he was hopeful that the appointment of ‘Q’, the nickname friends and colleagues use for Quemuel Arroyo, was a sign that the MTA could take a different approach. “So far, when there were other accessible advisors at the New York City Transit, it just didn’t happen,” Rappaport said.
The MTA has a history of not installing elevators while repairing or upgrading a station. The agency often said it cost too much and was not feasible, given the age of the stations and the complicated ownership of street space.
Arroyo confirmed to Gothamist that he would consider the ongoing lawsuits, but did not want to comment specifically on the cases or how he would advise MTA advocates.
The ongoing issue of how to reduce the cost of the Access-A-Ride program also falls on Arroyo to navigate. Prior to the pandemic, the MTA planned to curtail the popular e-hail program. Now the program’s future remains in the air. Arroyo says he does not use Access-A-Ride regularly, but prefers to take the subway.
The MTA currently has about 20 projects to add elevators in the planning or construction phase.
Arroyo, who previously worked at the DOT for six years and also worked on new accessibility projects at Jay Street Station, said he wants to use technology to help riders. For example, to find a way to use Bluetooth technology to inform riders with hearing problems at the same time as other riders about service changes.
“New Yorkers with disabilities have won a big battle today by making their voices heard and seeing their experiences at the highest level at the MTA on the table,” Arroyo said.