SEPTA ordered to install elevators for disabled

After six years of legal wrangling, a judge has ordered SEPTA to install elevators for disabled passengers at two major stations.

Ruling Friday in a lawsuit by Disabled in Action of Pennsylvania, U.S. District Judge Gene E.K. Pratter ordered SEPTA to build elevators in the courtyards at 15th and Market Streets and in the center of City Hall. Those areas have staircases or escalators leading to the Market-Frankford and Broad Street lines.

"This is, purely and simply, about civil rights and equal access," Steve Gold, the attorney for the disability-rights organization, said yesterday. "Disabled Americans have the right to access these stations."

SEPTA spokesman Gary Fairfax said yesterday that he had not seen the ruling and could not comment yet.

Nancy Salandra, president of DIA's board, said she was thrilled. "The judge did the right thing," she said. "This was a very frustrating process for us."

The lawsuit argued that SEPTA should have installed elevators in 2002 and 2003, when escalators and stairways in those areas were replaced. SEPTA argued that disabled passengers could get to the 15th and Market station by taking an elevator on 16th Street between JFK Boulevard and Market Street, which takes passengers down to a concourse.

That elevator is about 340 feet from the station, DIA argued, meaning that disabled people would have to travel significantly farther than other passengers.

"When you're talking about equal access and discrimination, it's not a money issue," Gold said.

According to the ruling, SEPTA's director of engineering said installing the elevator at City Hall would cost about $2 million and said in a deposition that as far as he knew, it could be done.

Disability-rights organizations have been battling SEPTA over compliance with the American With Disabilities Act since the law was enacted in 1990. In 1993, a group of people in wheelchairs sued SEPTA because buses were not always equipped with working lifts. In 2001, a judge ordered the agency to improve access to its paratransit vans, which transport disabled passengers and seniors, and implemented steep fines if SEPTA failed to provide a rider with a requested trip.