EDITORIAL: Get a move on: New York needs to move further, faster on accessibility

July 15--Thousands will walk and roll wheelchairs down Broadway Sunday in the city's third Disability Pride Parade. The pageant is important; more critical is whether people with mobility problems can get from point A to point B.

There's been some meaningful progress since 2015, but big hurdles remain.

The subway is the primary way to travel -- unless you use a wheelchair, because just a quarter of 472 stations have elevators or ramps. Even the stop at the parade's start, at 23rd St. and Broadway, isn't accessible. Fortunately, the No. 6 at 23rd and Park Ave South, has new elevators.

Hope for more movement soon, with new Transit Authority President Andy Byford making accessibility a pillar of his system plan. A seasoned disability rights advocate, Alex Elegudin, is the TA's first accessibility chief.

They need a triple focus on elevators: install more, keep existing ones working and ensure that every outage is instantly and accurately shown on the website and new app.

They also need to fix the universally panned Access-A-Ride, costing a half billion dollars a year. There is a good pilot program allowing less than 1% of the 150,000 users to get rides without the hassle of day-in-advance reservations and shared rides. It's also much cheaper.

On taxis, there are 2,400 wheelchair-accessible cabs, approaching 20% of the fleet. In two years it will be half. But the yellow taxi monopoly is gone due to Uber and Lyft and other e-hail services, which have 80,000 cars, with a paltry 167 being accessible, meaning very long waits.

Under new Taxi and Limousine Commission rules pushed by Chair Meera Joshi, the apps will need many more accessible cars so that that least 60% of wheelchair accessible rides arrive within 15 minutes. We're waiting.

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