A Block Too Pretty For Subway Entrances?

East 69th Street is mobilizing to halt the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's plan to add subway entrances on their tony block - needed to handle displaced crowd flows from adding required ADA elevators at the 68th Street entrances.

1 minute read

February 27, 2012, 2:00 PM PST

By Irvin Dawid

The Lexington Ave. #6 line is one of New York's busiest. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires MTA to install elevators at the 68th St./Hunter College stop, which in turn results in the need to construct new entrances/exits on 69th St.

"Some New Yorkers can only dream of having a subway train ferry them straight to their front door, but residents of East 69th Street say the entrances have no place on what they believe to be one of the prettiest streets around. They have formed a block association and hired lawyers, and they plan to tap an engineering firm to conduct transportation and environmental assessments that will likely show that the entrances can and should go elsewhere, or perhaps are not needed at all."

Cara Buckley writes that much of the block's argument against the subway entrances is that their "block is just too pretty" for them. She also notes that "residents of a building on East 86th Street sued the transit authority a year ago in an effort to stop the construction of entrances to the coming Second Avenue subway outside their front doors," which was eventually dismissed.

FULL STORY: Subway Entrances? Not on Our Block

Sunday, February 26, 2012 in The New York Times - N.Y. / Region

Government / Politics Infrastructure Transportation New York Manhattan Metropolitan Transportation Authority ADA Upper East Side Subway Entrance View More

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

Get top-rated, practical training

Start Learning

Advertise with us

Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools

This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.