PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — If you use a wheelchair like Latoya Maddox does and you want to get on the Broad Street Subway at Erie Avenue in North Philadelphia, there’s no way to get down to the platform. The closest station with an elevator, she says, is a half-mile away.
But that’s about to change.
At a ceremonial groundbreaking Monday, SEPTA marked the start of a $38 million project to overhaul Erie Station. The work includes three elevators to make the stop accessible to people with disabilities.
“Accessibility was not really considered when the Erie Station opened in 1928,” Federal Transit Administration Regional Administrator Theresa “Terry” Garcia Crews said at the ceremony.
Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Bob Casey says the project is funded with a grant from the All Stations Accessibility Program from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
“This is a day that’s been long in coming — to finally be breaking ground on this station,” he said.
When the work is finished in two to three years, Erie would become the 15th accessible station out of 24 on the Broad Street Line.