Signs of progress are visible near Citi Field and the National Tennis Center, where cranes loom in the distance from the rickety wooden boardwalk that links the Long Island Rail Road and the 7 train.
But with thousands of income-restricted apartments, retail space, a soccer stadium and a public school planned as part of a sprawling redevelopment of Queens’ so-called Iron Triangle, the LIRR and subway stops at Mets-Willets Point remain daunting to wheelchair users as the U.S. Open swings into its second week — nearly a decade after the MTA committed to installing elevators there.
“It’s an embarrassment, it’s a shame,” said Gerard Bringmann, an MTA board member and chair of the Long Island Rail Road Commuter Council. “This is the greatest city in the world and we’re hosting the U.S. Open, yet, if you’re in a wheelchair, you’re not taking public transit to get there.”
In September 2014, the MTA pledged to make the commuter rail line’s Mets-Willets Point stop fully accessible by 2016. Plans called for an elevator to move commuters between the train platform and the passageway that connects with Citi Field, the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
But the project to make the station compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act has not moved past the planning stages and MTA spokesperson David Steckel this week said “funding is not currently available for construction.”
The long-planned accessibility upgrades have also been hamstrung by the June pause on congestion pricing — the vehicle-tolling program that was supposed to generate billions of dollars for MTA capital projects — as well as the 2023 cancelation of the LaGuardia AirTrain, which would have run between the airport and the Willets Points transit complex.
“An elevator would make a terrific difference,” said 68-year-old Susan Cohen of Buffalo, who scaled the stairs from the platform while using a walker after taking the LIRR to the U.S. Open on Wednesday. “I lived here in the city for over 20 years and it alters the way I’ll come back to the city and how often.”
Wheelchair users who want to take the LIRR could go to the Woodside station, connect by elevator there to the No. 7 line, then take the subway to Mets-Willets Point, where a ramp built in 2009 leads onto Roosevelt Avenue. For Access-A-Ride users, there are new designated pick-up and drop-off areas near an entrance to the tennis center.
Carol Wetherbee, a 70-year-old Manhattan woman who uses a walker, used a cane to get up the steps from the LIRR platform Wednesday for her first-ever visit to the Grand Slam event.
“It’s disappointing,” Wetherbee told THE CITY. “I had to come with family so that they could carry the walker and I could walk up the stairs with my cane.”
‘This Station Needs a Champion’
But some local elected officials and transit advocates remain hopeful that Related Companies and Sterling Equities — the real-estate firms jointly developing Willets Point — could help pay for the long-stalled accessibility improvements.
Then there is Mets owner Steve Cohen, who with Hard Rock International, has proposed placing a casino in the parking lots around Citi Field as part of the $8 billion Metropolitan Park proposal. It calls for developer-funded community benefits that would include putting nearly half a billion dollars toward accessibility upgrades for the No. 7 station outside of the stadium.
Representatives for Related, Sterling Equities and Metropolitan Park did not respond to requests for comment from THE CITY.
Steckel said the agency is “always open to conversations with private partners” to secure transit improvements that include station accessibility.
The transit agency’s next five-year capital plan for large infrastructure projects is due in October, but Steckel would only say that the MTA is working on the proposed 2025-2029 capital program.
The pause on congestion pricing caused planned accessibility upgrades at the LIRR stops at the Forest Hills and Hollis stations to be put on hold but advocates are hopeful the Mets-Willets Point stop makes the cut once the plan is made public.
“We’re hoping that we see something, at least for the LIRR [Mets-Willets Point stop],” said Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA.
That transit advocacy group has previously said developers, sports teams and companies with a stake in the Willets Point plan should all be a part of funding the accessibility improvements.
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards has called on the Willets Point developers to fund mass transit improvements in the area and has also backed the Metropolitan Park proposal.
“The borough president has been outspoken throughout his career in his belief that our city cannot fully thrive without equitable access to mass transit for all its residents,” Chris Barca, a Richards spokesperson, said in a statement. “That is why he has publicly and privately called on the MTA to ramp up its efforts to improve transit accessibility across its system, especially at high-traffic stations like Mets-Willets Point.”
With the stations serving Citi Field and the Tennis Center now in the midst of their annual surge in ridership — which comes as demand for Parks Department tennis permits across the city are expected to hit a five-year high of 20,000 — U.S. Open fans said the accessibility plans should be put back on the fast track.
“If you have a disability in any way, it’s preventative of enjoying the event,” said Sylvia Butler, 54, of Robbinsville, N.J., who took the LIRR to watch the tournament. “I don’t even know how someone with a disability even gets up from the platform.”
Disability-rights advocate Sasha Blair-Goldensohn, a wheelchair user from Manhattan who has played at the tennis center, said the inability to make Mets-Willets Point fully accessible stands as “one of the most outrageous” examples of the MTA’s shortcomings for meeting the needs of people with disabilities.
“Not everybody can go to Mets games, not everybody can go to the U.S. Open,” he said. “It’s so not rocket science to make this happen — this station needs a champion, that’s what it needs.”
