Franchise Opportunities in New York City, NY

The M.T.A. will spend billions to add elevators and ramps to stations over the next several decades, settling lawsuits accusing it of violating the rights of people with disabilities.

New York has lagged for years behind other major American cities in making its subway system accessible to people with disabilities: Just 126 of its 472 stations, or 27 percent, have elevators or ramps that make them fully accessible.

But on Wednesday, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said it would add elevators and ramps to 95 percent of the subway’s stations by 2055 as part of a settlement agreement in two class-action lawsuits over the issue.

The agreement, which still requires court approval, would establish a clear — and lengthy — timeline to address a problem that has effectively barred people who use wheelchairs and mobility devices from fully accessing the city’s transit system, a backbone of New York’s social and economic life.

Under the settlement, the transportation authority will make an additional 81 subway and Staten Island Railway stations accessible by 2025. It will then make another 85 stations accessible by 2035, 90 more by 2045 and then 90 more by 2055.

The subway stations slated for changes include nine that are currently partially accessible, in which passengers who cannot use stairs have access only to trains traveling in one direction.

“We don’t have equity, we don’t have equality, if people are left out of their ability to use a mass transit system that for so many people — more than half of New Yorkers — is the only way to get around,” Janno Lieber, the authority’s chairman, said.

Both Mr. Lieber and disability groups acknowledged that the agreed-upon timeline was slow. Transit officials have said engineering concerns, construction time and costs all necessitate a long-term plan.

And even when the work is completed — more than six decades after the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act, which barred discrimination against people with disabilities in public facilities — the subway is still not set to be 100 percent accessible.

“We would like sooner,” said Jean Ryan, the president of Disabled in Action, a nonprofit organization that is a plaintiff in the lawsuits. “But they say they can’t do it sooner. And you don’t make somebody promise to do something that they can’t do.”

The changes will benefit a wide range of riders who struggle to use narrow fare gates or climb subway stairs, including parents toting children in strollers, shoppers carrying large items home and airport travelers with luggage.

But the settlement’s most transformative effects will be felt by people with disabilities who have long been excluded from broad swaths of New York’s subway system and, by extension, parts of the city it serves.

Samuel Jimenez, 65, who uses a cane, said he hoped to see significant improvements in the system. The Montrose Avenue station in Brooklyn where he typically boards does not have an elevator, making travel difficult.

“I have to go down steps at my station, which takes me an hour and a day,” Mr. Jimenez, who was traveling to a dialysis appointment, said at the Union Square station on Wednesday. “I would say that it slows me down quite a bit. I miss a lot of trains because of that.”

Many individual subway lines have significant stretches that are off limits to wheelchair users, including areas outside Manhattan where the gap between accessible elevators is more than 10 stops. They include large stretches of the G and J lines, part of the F line and much of the portion of the 6 line that runs through the Bronx.

Ms. Ryan, who rode the subway for 25 years before she began using a motorized wheelchair, said those gaps force many people with disabilities to use modes of transportation that are less convenient and reliable, and sometimes more costly, than the subway.

“It goes 24 hours, and it’s spontaneous,” she said. “You can change your plans. You can do anything with the subway.”

Disability rights activists have for years tried to push transit officials to improve access, with a particular focus on the lack of elevator service. In 2017, a group of organizations and disabled residents filed a lawsuit in state court that said the transit system’s lack of elevators was a violation of the city’s human rights law.

Two years later, another set of plaintiffs filed a federal lawsuit accusing the transit agency of violating the Americans With Disabilities Act when officials renovated subway stations without installing elevators, ramps or similar accommodations.

When the act was passed in 1990, it required any public facilities built after 1993 to be accessible. Though most of the subway system is significantly older than that, the transit agency in 1994 reached an agreement with the federal government to make 100 “key stations” accessible by 2020, a goal it met.

Transit systems newer than New York’s, including those in San Francisco and Washington, are completely accessible. And other aging subway systems have significantly higher rates of accessibility than New York’s. More than two-thirds of stations in Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago meet the Americans With Disabilities Act’s standards.

New York transit officials had been criticized for the slow pace of improvements, which disabled riders said was insufficient given the breadth and scope of the subway system. It operates around the clock and has the highest number of stations of any city in the world.

At the end of 2019, as the lawsuits were being debated in court, officials approved a $5.2 billion plan to add elevators to 70 stations by 2024, a speed at which the agency had “never” operated before, Mr. Lieber said.

The settlement agreement would advance that commitment. The transit authority would be required to devote about 15 percent of the subway’s capital budget — which is used for construction, upgrades and maintenance projects — to specific efforts to improve accessibility.

“It’s going to take billions of dollars, it’s going to take a lot of sweat and muscle, but we will get it done,” Mr. Lieber said.

The settlement will represent a significant financial outlay for a transit authority that has faced increased fiscal pressure as a result of the pandemic. The transit system has long struggled to keep capital spending down, paying some of the highest construction costs in the world for projects.

Transit officials already have a lengthy list of expensive projects and system upgrades in their capital plan. A congestion pricing plan that was expected to bring hundreds of millions of dollars for those improvements has been delayed, with Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mr. Lieber blaming officials in Washington for an extensive federal review process.

Even with the financial investment it calls for, the settlement will not bring the subway system to full accessibility. Mr. Lieber said that the remaining 5 percent of stations not covered by the agreement have difficult engineering issues, including concerns over stability or additional weight, that would make adding elevators or ramps unfeasible.

The agreement will also not address the condition of existing elevators, the focus of another lawsuit. Passengers who rely on the elevators say that they are poorly maintained and that even those that are operating properly are overly crowded, unclean and plagued by foul smells.

And even when they were functioning, she said, seemingly simple trips could be an ordeal.

To travel from her home in Alphabet City to a Target in Downtown Brooklyn on Wednesday, she took a bus to Union Square, then two elevators down to the subway platform.

Upon arriving at the Atlantic Avenue station, she then needed to take three elevators to get up to street level, with lengthy walks between them.

But still, she said, it was better than the alternative.

“I can’t do the stairs,” she said. “If you see the stairs, it’s like you’ll never get to heaven.”

The city’s hotel industry didn’t roll out the welcome mat for a sunny forecast from CBRE which claimed that pandemic-battered inns are doing just fine.

Hotel Association of New York City president and CEO Vijay Dandapani threw shade on the real estate company’s rosy forecast as his organization lobbies for a big cut in the city’s hotel occupancy tax from 5.875 percent to 2.875 — as well as for reduced property taxes.

Lawmakers are likely to be less receptive to the pitch if hotels are in better shape that recent gloomy reports have suggested. But as in most data comparisons, there’s some truth to both perspectives.

Dandapani said CBRE’s survey, which The Post reported on Tuesday, was off base in predicting a return to pre-pandemic occupancy and revenue by 2024.

“We are cheerleaders for the city, but there’s a gap between expectations and hope,” Dandapani said.

The optimistic prediction was written by Dan Hanrahan, CBRE senior vice-president of Hotels Advisory for the northeast. Dandapani said that Hanrahan’s forecast that revPAR — or revenue per available room, a key industry metric — would “leapfrog back to 2019 numbers” this year was “very unlikely.”

If it does, “We can all buy a drink at Christmas,” Dandapani deadpanned.

CBRE based its cheery forecast on data from this year’s first quarter, which showed upticks in occupancy levels, room rates and revPAR.

The Hotel Association’s own data for the first five months of 2022 show average revPAR for this year, although rising on average from 2021 lows, still well below 2019 — $155 compared with $184 before the virus struck.

“In order to catch up, revPAR would have to considerably exceed the current $155 for the rest of the year. Crossing the chasm is not impossible, but it is unlikely,” Dandapani said.

Moreover, he said that revPar in 2019 and in 2022 have different meanings, given that the city’s hotel rooms shrunk from about 122,000 in 2019 to around 100,000 today.

Luxury-class inns such as the Baccarat, the St. Regis, Pierre and the Four Seasons downtown are outperforming cheaper properties, he said.

But many hotels at all price points remain closed — from top-tier Four Seasons on East 57th Street, to the mid-market Marriott Eastside on Lexington Avenue, to budget lodgings in Chelsea and the Far West Side.

“Most elected officials are pushing for changing closed hotels to housing,” Dandapani said. “What that means is, there are a lot of closed hotels” — and the losses haven’t been fully offset by recent openings such as the Hard Rock and Riu hotels near Times Square.

Other troubling “headwinds” include the sluggish return of international business travel and the near-complete loss of visitors from China and Brazil.

But Dandapani acknowledged at least one promising vital sign. Asked how much guests were paying per room today compared with pre-pandemic days, he said last week’s average cost across all hotel classes was $263 — “within five percent, within striking distance, of 2019,” he said.

Officials are considering plans for a track level addition to New York’s Penn Station that could eliminate some of the most hellish conditions for riders and open up the station to more NJ Transit trains after completion of the Gateway Tunnel.

The Penn Station addition — also known as Penn South and the Penn Annex — has four options being considered by Amtrak and NJ Transit, officials said. Both are the lead agencies for the addition that has been proposed in various forms between the Gateway Project and New York State Penn Station renovation.

The four options include building a track level addition north and south of the existing station, a deep cavern station underneath Penn Station and an option to “through run” trains across various commuter railroads, where the technology allows it, Amtrak officials said.

Advocates and experts had feared for the fate of the addition after it was left out of Requests for Proposals for the Penn Station renovation announced on June 9. The MTA’s request for proposals tell potential architects and engineers that the Penn Station expansion is “not part of this project.”

“We have concerns that as currently proposed, there are no improvements to Penn Station tracks and platforms. That is problematic,” said Felicia Park Rogers, Tri-State Transportation Campaign infrastructure director. “They don’t work for a modern station. They’re just adding more vertical access and it doesn’t solve the problem.”

Penn Station has narrow platforms that weren’t designed for the volume and frequency of commuter service. She echoed the concern of other commuters about platform crowding, especially when two trains load or unload on one platform during rush hour.

“The platforms are dangerous and narrow, even when there’s not a crowd. I’m terrified walking on them,” Park Rogers said.

What could New Jersey commuters get?

“Amtrak has issued an RFP for a consultant to begin designing options for the first new tracks, platforms and concourses connected to New York Penn Station in more than a century,” said Justin Henry, a spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Murphy administration officials also confirmed an addition is happening.

“Alongside its regional partners, the Murphy administration continues to make significant progress toward its comprehensive vision for an expanded Penn Station,” said Bailey Lawrence, a governor’s spokesman. “Together, we will achieve improvements that meet the greatest expectations of New Jerseyans and the needs of one of the most important transportation networks in the world.”

The addition to Penn Station is a separate project from the station renovation and is proceeding on a separate path from the renovation above track level, including the investigation of four options, Amtrak officials said.

“A Penn Station expansion is a Gateway Project,” said Craig Schutz, an Amtrak spokesman who specializes in Gateway. “We are advancing plans individually and in parallel.”

A draft environmental impact statement is close to beginning for a Penn Station expansion which will investigate several options, including an addition north and south of the existing station and a deep cavern station under Penn Station, he said. A modified concept to through run some trains is being considered, similar to joint NJ Transit-Metro North New Haven division “train to the game” service that ran between New Haven and Secaucus for Sunday football games at MetLife Stadium.

The $12.3 billion Gateway tunnel project would build two new rail tunnels between New Jersey and New York and rehabilitate the existing 111-year-old tunnels. The tunnels would open capacity for more trains, but a Penn Station addition and other parts of Gateway, such as the Bergen loop track, are needed to allow Bergen County and Metro North west of Hudson trains to travel directly to New York City.

After that environmental study of the options is completed, a financial plan will be developed, Schutz said. Public and community hearing also would be held.

Other advocates urged commuters to keep their eyes on a prize of more direct New York service for New Jersey riders.

“The expansion of Penn Station is critically important to New Jersey. We’re glad to see the three agencies and two states working together to make sure that we have the best outcome for riders,” said Zoe Baldwin, Regional Plan Association’s New Jersey director. “I’ve seen a lot of positive signs the agencies and state are working toward the same goal, but it doesn’t mean the riding public should be any less vigilant.”

Greater transparency about the Penn Station addition is needed, and the project, its cost and schedule should be listed in the capital improvement project plans of the various state and federal agencies involved, said Larry Penner, a former Federal Transit Administration official and transit advocate.

“The only way to document progress is to see the detailed schedule week by week, month by month and year by year,” he said. “It would include interim milestones, such as dates for submittal of documents to the appropriate federal agency, and completion of federal review for the submitted documents.”

Officials also need to start working to become eligible for FTA grants, which Penner cautioned is a multi-year, competitive process. New York and New Jersey’s Statewide Transportation Program and Long Range Capital Transportation Needs Plans also should list both projects and funding sources, he said.

Tri-state officials had a homework assignment for Amtrak and NJ Transit.

“What Tri-state would like to see to see in the four scenarios is a true cost benefit analysis of a smaller expansion that allows through running and reorganizing platforms to make for safer disembarking,” Park Rogers said.

Through running of trains across different railroads has been examined by third party think tanks, most recently in a ReThink concept that proposed taking out some tracks and building wider platforms to allow trains to quickly load and unload and leave the station.

“It doesn’t have to be ReThink’s plan, but we think Amtrak should do a true analysis of it,” she said.

A Penn Station addition has seesawed in and out of both the Gateway project. In 2014, Amtrak estimated it would have to buy 35 properties for a Penn Station addition, valued then at close to a half a billion dollars because of building foundations in the area where the addition would be built. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2016 Empire Station concept opened up the claustrophobic Penn Station to allow natural light and a bigger surface presence. It did not address track level problems that cause commuter overcrowding on platforms and cap train capacity.

Cuomo modified the 2016 plan in a February 2021 iteration of the plan that included Penn South and also called for constructing eight skyscrapers in the adjoining neighborhood to fund station work. In November 2021, Hochul scaled back the skyscraper development plan in response to neighborhood criticism of the Empire State Development general plan. That plan put off a Penn Station addition.

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As the American artistic swimmer Anita Alvarez sank slowly to the bottom of the pool at the world championships in Budapest on Wednesday, her coach Andrea Fuentes quickly scanned the pool deck and made a split-second decision: She dove in to save her.

Alvarez, a 25-year-old from upstate New York, had lost consciousness at the end of her solo routine at the event, creating a potentially life-threatening situation as her motionless body drifted below the surface.

“I jumped into the water again because I saw that no one, no lifeguard, was jumping in,” Fuentes, a former Olympic medalist from Spain, told the Spanish newspaper Marca. “I got a little scared because she wasn’t breathing.”

Fuentes said Alvarez, who was treated by medical staff, had gone about two minutes without breathing as water filled her lungs. Doctors had “checked all vitals and everything is normal: heart rate, oxygen, sugar levels, blood pressure, etc,” Fuentes said in an update posted to the Instagram account of U.S.A. Artistic Swimming, the sport’s American governing body.

Fuentes was hailed for her quick thinking, but she knew what to do because she had done it before. At an Olympic qualifying event last year in Spain, Alvarez similarly lost consciousness at the end of a routine with her pairs partner, Lindi Schroeder. As she did on Wednesday, Fuentes dove into the pool fully clothed and, with Schroeder’s help, pulled Alvarez back above the water.

On Wednesday, Fuentes, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, saved Alvarez again. After returning Alvarez to the pool deck, where she received medical treatment and was placed on a stretcher, Fuentes told reporters that Alvarez was “fine” and would be re-evaluated after some rest. She did not rule out having her returning for the team event later this week.

Alvarez, a two-time Olympian, finished seventh in the solo free event on Wednesday. At the 2016 Rio Games, she finished ninth in the duet event, and she placed 13th in the competition at the rescheduled Tokyo 2020 Games last summer in Japan. She is competing in the world championships for the fourth time.

“We sometimes forget that this happens in other high-endurance sports,” Fuentes said in the U.S.A. Artistic Swimming statement. “Marathon, cycling, cross country … we all have seen images where some athletes don’t make it to the finish line and others help them to get there. Our sport is no different than others, just in a pool, we push through limits and sometimes we find them.”

Fuentes reported that “Anita feels good now and the doctors also say she is OK.”

“Tomorrow she will rest all day and will decide with the doctor if she can swim free team finals or not,” Fuentes said.

Alvarez had done the same at the Olympic event last year in Spain, returning to the pool only hours after fainting to perform her next routine.

She said at the time that she had previously fainted during strenuous training sessions, but not in a competition. Alvarez told WIVB-TV, a local television station in Buffalo, that she thought the demanding schedule and emotional toll of the events had caused her to faint.

“The way the schedule was set up, I was the only athlete competing in both events that day and again the next morning,” Alvarez said. “Besides the physical and emotional aspect, we’re in this tight, closed pool that’s very hot. The chlorine is very strong.”

New York City will begin offering vaccination against monkeypox to at-risk groups on Thursday, as authorities scramble to contain a global outbreak.

As opposed to the early days of COVID, when there was no effective treatment, there are already multiple vaccines that work against the orthopoxvirus that causes the ailment.

Some 28 people have tested positive for the virus in the city since early May, almost all of them men who have sex with men. In total New York City represents more than 20% of all cases diagnosed nationwide.

The move to offer the vaccine follows similar efforts in cities like Montreal and Toronto.

The Health Department today announced the opening of a temporary clinic to administer the two-dose JYNNEOS vaccine to eligible people who may have had a recent exposure to monkeypox, the city announced.

The vaccines will be administered at the Chelsea Sexual Health Clinic (303 Ninth Avenue in Manhattan). The clinic will open Thursday, and will be open on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. moving forward.

How Do You Catch Monkeypox?

The CDC issued new monkeypox guidance last week as the number of suspected cases nationwide boomed, marking America's largest-ever outbreak of monkeypox, which typically has been confined to other continents.

While the CDC says the risk to the general public remains low, people are urged to avoid close contact with those who are sick, including those with skin or genital lesions, as well as sick or dead animals. Anyone displaying symptoms, like unexplained skin rash or lesions, should reach out to their healthcare providers for guidance.

It is also advised to avoid eating meat that comes from wild game or using products (such as creams, powders or lotions) that come from wild animals from Africa.

What Is Monkeypox?

Monkeypox was first discovered in 1958, when outbreaks occurred in colonies of monkeys kept for research -- resulting in its name. (What you need to know about monkeypox.)

The first case in a human was reported in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which still has the majority of infections. Other African countries where it has been found: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Liberia, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo and Sierra Leone.

Human symptoms of monkeypox are similar to but milder than the symptoms of smallpox, the CDC says. It presents itself as a flu-like illness accompanied by lymph-node swelling and rash on the face and body.

Monkeypox starts off with fever, headache, muscle aches, and exhaustion. Monkeypox also causes lymph nodes to swell, something that smallpox does not. The incubation period is usually 7−14 days but can range from 5−21 days.

The CDC is urging healthcare providers in the U.S. to be alert for patients who have rashes consistent with monkeypox, regardless of whether they have traveled or have specific risks for monkeypox. See more information from the travel notice here.