Getting around the city’s transit system can be a Herculean effort for disabled New Yorkers — so the MTA is turning a downtown Brooklyn subway stop into a proving ground to test new accessibility measures.
On Wednesday, subway officials announced that the Jay Street-Metrotech subway hub would serve as an “accessibility lab.”
The MTA will test out new features at the transit hub — which serves four different subway lines — including Braille and “tactile” signage, interactive station maps and multiple cell phone apps aimed to assist the visually impaired navigate stations.
Diagrams will also be posted throughout the station informing riders who rely on elevators and escalators how to exit in case of an outage.
Just 110 of the subway’s 472 stations are elevator accessible, a number expected to increase to 180 after the MTA wraps up its next capital plan, which includes $5.2 billion for accessibility upgrades.




At the same time, however, the agency has worked to address other accessibility concerns, particularly those of blind transit riders. If the new strategies are well-regarded, the MTA will expand them system-wide.
“Every station to be accessible and that goes way beyond just elevators,” buses and subways chief Andy Byford told reporters Wednesday.
Transit advocates lauded the experiments.
“Accessible design features like those being testing at [Jay Street] will help lifelong New Yorkers and visitors alike navigate complex subway stations,” said TransitCenter’s Colin Wright, who leads the Manhattan-based think tank’s accessibility campaign.



