Cymbrowitz pushes MTA to build elevators in subway stations
Southern Brooklyn subway stations are difficult for senior citizens and physically disabled people to navigate, according to Assemblymember Steven Cymbrowitz, who said the vast majority of the stations don’t have elevators, a sorry situation that forces riders to trek up long flights of stairs to get to the train.
Cymbrowitz, (D-Sheepshead Bay-Brighton Beach) said he has secured $1.3 million in state funding for Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) capital projects in his district and wants the money to be put toward renovating local subway stations to make them more user-friendly for senior citizens and people with physical disabilities.
The assemblymember has written a letter to MTA President Veronique Hakim about working together to find ways to “identify ways to promote accessibility,” which Cymbrowitz said is “a glaring problem in a district that includes 25,000 seniors, or more than 21 percent of the population, a number higher than the citywide average.”
Cymbrowitz said that of the 14 subway stations in the southern end of his district, only one, Kings Highway, which serves the Q and B subway lines, has an elevator. No other station is accessible to the frail elderly or the physically disabled, he said.