(The following story by Paul Nussbaum appeared on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on September 15, 2009.)
PHILADELPHIA — SEPTA is considering an appeal of an order requiring two subway-access elevators near City Hall, the transit agency’s chief lawyer said yesterday.
The city’s transportation chief, though, said she would prefer that SEPTA not contest the ruling but find a way to meet the needs of the handicapped riders who sued for better access.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Gene E.K. Pratter ruled in favor of disabled passengers who sued to compel SEPTA to build the elevators. She gave SEPTA until Oct. 30 to prepare a schedule for complying with the order.
“We are reviewing whether to appeal,” SEPTA general counsel Nicholas Staffieri said yesterday. He said SEPTA was also trying to determine if Pratter’s ruling constituted a final order.
Pratter’s ruling requires SEPTA to build one elevator at 15th and Market Streets and another in the courtyard of City Hall for convenient access to the Market-Frankford and Broad Street subway stations below.
Staffieri said SEPTA could not build an elevator in the courtyard of City Hall without permission from the city, which owns the courtyard. He said he had not yet spoken with city officials about getting that permission.
“The city has to be brought in. It is the landlord,” Staffieri said. He said city architects or planners might object to building an elevator in the historic courtyard.
Rina Cutler, the city’s deputy mayor for transportation and one of two city representatives on the SEPTA board, said, “I can’t imagine we would withhold permission for something like that.”
“I would agree that it’s long overdue to have accessibility down there,” Cutler said.
Cutler said she would prefer to add the elevators as part of an already planned rehabilitation of the deteriorated City Hall subway station.
“I would agree with the notion that it needs to be handicapped accessible, but I need some time with SEPTA to determine the best way to do it.”
Cutler suggested that SEPTA might be able to make elevator installation an early part of its City Hall station rehabilitation.
The City Hall station makeover, which could cost about $100 million, is supposed to start in 2011.
The elevator lawsuit, brought by Disabled in Action of Pennsylvania, argued SEPTA should have installed elevators in 2002 and 2003, when escalators and stairways were replaced in the area.
SEPTA argued the 15th and Market elevator location is part of Suburban Station, already served by two nearby elevators. The advocates for the disabled argued the nearest existing elevator was 340 feet from the 15th and Market subway station, which would require disabled people to travel significantly farther than other passengers to get to that station.