This Harlem Subway Station Needs An Elevator, Officials Tell MTA

HARLEM, NY — If you're a disabled commuter, transit options in Harlem and Upper Manhattan are few and far between. Now, a group of local lawmakers is pressing the state to fund accessibility work at one notable subway stop: the 125th Street station on the 1 line.

In a letter sent Wednesday to Gov. Kathy Hochul, a group of Harlem officials asked the governor, who controls the MTA, to consider installing elevators at the above-ground station.

Used by 7,600 daily commuters on an average pre-pandemic weekday, the station sits atop a 54-foot-high viaduct that towers over Broadway. While it contains escalators, it lacks any elevators, leaving the station inaccessible to wheelchair users, parents with strollers and many senior citizens.

Indeed, north of 96th Street, there is only a single station on the 1 line — 231st Street in the Bronx — that is accessible to people with disabilities.

"This is a critical issue for West Harlem, where density has grown to unprecedented levels and will only continue to grow with new planned developments," officials wrote in the letter, whose signatories include U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, Councilmember Shaun Abreu and Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine.

The lawmakers are asking Hochul to fund the elevators as part of the MTA's Capital Plan. The timing is open-ended, leaving open the possibility that the project could be added to the MTA's ongoing 2020-2024 plan, or a future funding round.

The surrounding area of West Harlem is a "naturally occurring retirement community," the lawmakers noted, with local complexes housing "hundreds of older residents in need of accessible transit."

Only a fraction of the city's 472 subway stations are ADA-accessible — a woeful figure that the MTA is trying to address through a $5 billion plan included in the 2020-2024 capital program. The list of 70 stations slated for accessibility work does not include 125th Street.

The governor's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the letter. Others who signed onto it include Assemblymember Daniel O'Donnell, Community Board 9 chair Barry Weinberg, and Peggy Shepard, co-founder of WE ACT for Environmental Justice.