Want a lift? How about three? Metro’s elevators leave some riders behind

In the first half of this series last week, I wrote about how Metro came to have elevators in each of its 98 stations. This reality did not come easily, and it is a huge win for mobility justice. However, Metro still has a long way to go when it comes to serving people with mobility impairments.

Metro’s three downtown transfer stations — Metro Center, Gallery Place, and L’Enfant Plaza — are among the system’s most heavily used. Their unusually complex designs, however, with center platforms on their lower levels and side platforms on their upper levels, make them a particular challenge for passengers with mobility impairments. In addition, other issues, such as the fact that most stations require multiple elevator trips with no back-up for an out-of-service elevator to reach trains, also make Metrorail more difficult for travelers with mobility impairments to use.

At Metro Center and Gallery Place, some riders need to use three elevators to get from the street to their trains

Transfering between trains by elevator at Metro Center and Gallery Place is relatively straightforward. Both stations have elevators from their lower-level center platforms to the eastbound and westbound upper-level side platforms that serve the Red Line. However, both stations have surface elevators directly serving one platform — the westbound Red Line platform at Metro Center and the eastbound Red Line platform at Gallery Place — which means that if you’re in a wheelchair, getting from the surface to a Red Line train going in the opposite direction requires three elevator trips.

To get to a westbound Red Line train at Gallery Place or an eastbound Red Line train at Metro Center from the surface, one must first take an elevator from the surface to the wrong-direction Red Line platform, then one (with no backup if it is out of service) down to the lower-level platform, and then another elevator with no backup to the right-direction Red Line platform. The construction of a second set of surface elevator at each of these stations, connecting to the eastbound Red Line platform at Metro Center and the westbound Red Line platform at Gallery Place, would solve this issue and provide a back-up option for wheelchair users when one of the elevators was out of service.

At L’Enfant Plaza, some transfers are impossible without using three different elevators

At L’Enfant Plaza, the situation is simpler for surface access: the surface elevator connects to the north mezzanine that serves the Maryland Avenue-7th Street SW entrance, and elevators from that mezzanine serve both upper-level Green and Yellow Line platforms. However, only the southbound upper-level platform has an elevator to the lower-level Orange, Blue, and Silver Line center platform.

This arrangement of elevators means that transfers between the Orange, Blue, and Silver Lines and northbound Green and Yellow Line trains require wheelchair users to make three elevator trips: from the lower-level platform to the southbound upper-level platform, from the southbound upper-level platform to the mezzanine, and from the mezzanine to the northbound upper-level platform. The addition of an elevator between the northbound Green and Yellow Line platform and the lower-level platform would cut this down to a single elevator trip.

While all WMATA stations have elevators, the lack of redundancy makes elevator outages a serious problem for riders with limited mobility

Beyond the cumbersome layouts, a more basic challenge persists: Metro elevators break down or are otherwise out of service relatively frequently, and most stations lack back-up options (known as “redundancy” in the engineering world) for when the elevators are not working. Even stations with multiple escalator entrances usually only have a single elevator running from the street level to one mezzanine and a single elevator from the mezzanine to each platform. If either of these two elevators isn’t operational, wheelchair users cannot access the station.

For stations with multiple escalator entrances but only a single elevator entrance, as with the downtown transfer stations, installing additional elevators could provide redundancy for elevator outages and add convenience for wheelchair users even when all elevators are functioning. Even stations with a single entrance, though, like Fort Totten — where a single elevator connects the ground-level mezzanine with the above-ground Red Line platform and the below-ground Green Line platform — would benefit significantly from having redundant pairs of elevators so that a single elevator outage didn’t make the station unusable for those who depend on elevators.

Redundant elevators may not be possible for every station in the system, but they should be considered for higher-ridership stations and particularly for stations in walkable areas and ones that are major bus hubs, where traveling to another station to avoid an elevator outage is likely to be particularly impractical.

Elevator access is important, but it isn’t the only thing wheelchair users need to be able to ride Metrorail

Elevators are an obvious issue when considering accessibility for mobility-impaired Metrorail passengers, but they aren’t the only concern. Each Metro station has at least one wide, wheelchair-accessible fare gate at its elevator entrances, but often there is only one of these gates.

This lack of redundancy means that if it is broken — for example, because of turnstile-jumpers putting weight on it while using it because it is the easiest gate to jump — wheelchair users won’t be able to enter or exit the station even if the elevators are working. Adding a second wide fare gate at each station entrance with an elevator would help reduce this issue; it also would not require removing any fare gates, since nearly every station entrance has more space for fare gates than it has gates.

Another issue that can pose a problem for wheelchair users is the gap between the platform and the train. Likewise, limiting platform obstructions can make wheelchair travel easier, especially at busy or crowded stations.

Do you have other suggestions for how WMATA can make Metrorail more accessible to people with disabilities?