Curbed examines MTA’s $110M/station elevator costs for the NYC subway

New York magazine’s Curbed blog takes a deep dive into estimates of station elevator installations to achieve ADA compliance across the NYC subway system. The author, Nolan Hicks, is an MTA-focused researcher at NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management’s Transit Costs Project.

The MTA’s latest $68 billion capital plan, focused on modernizing New York City’s transit system, includes $11.9 billion for subway station improvements, with a raft of accessibility upgrades. A significant portion of that—$110 million per station roughly—is earmarked for installing elevators to meet ADA compliance. This high cost has raised concerns about efficiency and project management at MTA.

The expenses are driven by the complex requirements of installing elevators in older stations. Each station needs at least two elevators, and the work often involves extensive structural modifications, such as reconfiguring electrical systems and shrinking existing spaces. This accounts for about half of the elevator-project’s costs.

More concerning, MTA bundles additional improvements into these projects—such as rebuilding staircases and replacing worn platforms—which aren’t always directly tied to elevators and may be nearby deferred maintenance, thereby dragging in other projects and costs.

Critics argue MTA’s decentralized project management structure is a mismatch for such project scoping. The agency’s construction arm lacks the authority to push back against the demands from various divisions, resulting in overly ambitious designs. This problem mirrors those that plagued the Second Avenue subway project, where unchecked design expansions led to massive cost overruns.

Experts suggest that the MTA could reduce costs by bringing design and project management back in-house, as was done in the system’s early days. A streamlined team with direct oversight could better control project scope and costs, potentially saving millions per project. This approach, already used by transit systems in London and Paris, could help the MTA cut costs by through better project scoping, estimating, and coordination.