SEPTA is getting $56 million to help make six subway stations more accessible
Nearly 90% of stations on SEPTA's Market-Frankford Line are accessible to people with disabilities, but that varies widely on its other rail lines.
Federal transit officials announced $686 million in new grants on Monday to make older transit and commuter rail stations accessible to people with disabilities, including $56 million for SEPTA to overhaul six subway-elevated stations.
The grants will cover half the $112 million SEPTA has budgeted to install elevators, ramps, and other improvements at five stations on the Broad Street Line, as well as the 11th Street Station on the Market-Frankford Line. The balance will come from state and city funds, officials said.
“SEPTA stations are gateways to opportunity but only if they are accessible,” General Manager and CEO Leslie S. Richards said.
All the stations scheduled for upgrades were built at least 50 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act of the 1990s and currently are accessible only by stairs.
On the Broad Street subway, construction is planned for the Chinatown, Erie, Snyder, and two Fairmount stations, one on the main line and the other on the Broad-Ridge Spur. Work is scheduled to be completed in 2027.
In addition, SEPTA has begun construction on modernization projects on the Susquehanna-Dauphin and Tasker-Morris stations on the Broad Street Line that include fixes to make them accessible.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D., Ill.), a former Army helicopter pilot who was wounded in combat in Iraq and uses a wheelchair, pushed for inclusion of a grant program to upgrade stations in the 2021 infrastructure act. She noted the ADA “theoretically” guarantees her and others access to public transportation.
“The key word here is theoretically. Anyone who’s been on public transportation lately knows that we still have a lot of heck of a long way to go,” Duckworth said during a Federal Transit Administration news conference.
She said she is not able to use the L trains in her Chicago hometown because so many stations are inaccessible.
Nationally, more than 900 of 3,700 rail stations remain inaccessible to people with disabilities, FTA Administrator Nuria Fernandez said.
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For SEPTA, accessibility ranges from a low of 27% of stations on the Norristown High Speed Line, to 89% of those along the Market-Frankford Line, which carried 62.7 million passengers in 2019. Twelve of the Broad Street Line’s 25 stations were accessible.
SEPTA’s buses and much of its rail fleet are accessible, with the exception of the early ‘80s Kawasaki trolley cars that run in the city and Delaware County, officials said. The agency is pursuing a nearly $2 billion plan to modernize the streetcar network with ADA-compliant vehicles and boarding platforms.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said more accessible transit would help many Americans: parents pushing strollers, musicians carrying instruments, shoppers with packages, elderly passengers, and more.
“As is often said, when you can address the impact of issues on whoever faces the biggest barriers, it means you’ve helped to find solutions for everyone else too,” Buttigieg said.
The Philadelphia Inquirer is one of more than 20 news organizations producing Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and the city’s push toward economic justice. See all of our reporting at brokeinphilly.org.