WBUR: “Advocates Say MBTA Riders Need Accessibility Now, Not Later”

Wendy Landman, the executive director of WalkBoston and a consultant on PATI, praises the MBTA’s progress but acknowledges the project has barriers.

“Like everything else that we think about with public transportation in Massachusetts, the money is short and issues to solve are big,” Landman says.

In the meantime, those big issues continue to affect people with disabilities, advocates say.

Carol Steinberg, an attorney, writer and disability activist, lives near the Forest Hills stop on the Orange Line. Although she stresses that service has improved, she says she avoids the T. She worries that elevators will be out of service, or that no employees will be around to put down the ramp that helps her wheelchair cross the gap between the train and the platform.

“When I take it, I’m happy I took it. It works,” she says. “But I’m nervous about it, so I drive.”

To get her to use the T more often, she says the MBTA must keep getting better.

“Keep doing what they’re doing, but speed it up,” says Steinberg.

Aired April 3, 2019

Carol Steinberg is a WalkBoston Board member.