New York City subway elevators recorded 1,268 passenger entrapments in 2025, roughly three and a half every day, even as systemwide elevator availability reached about 97.6% of service hours (MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability 2025). That paradox defines station accessibility in 2026: averages look strong, yet one broken elevator can strand a wheelchair user for a whole trip. Only 165 of 496 subway station records in the MTA’s own dataset are fully ADA accessible, the Chicago Transit Authority has reached 110 of 146 rail stations, and the Federal Transit Administration has awarded about $1.26 billion across three rounds of its All Stations Accessibility Program. Demand is not small: 18.6 million Americans report travel-limiting disabilities (Bureau of Transportation Statistics, 2022 NHTS). We aggregated data from MTA Open Data, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the Federal Transit Administration and National Transit Database, the CTA, MBTA, WMATA and CDC, and cross-checked them against agency capital plans. For the street-level side of the same journey, see our tactile paving and pedestrian audio cue statistics.
TL;DR
- 18.6 million Americans age 5+ have travel-limiting disabilities, 6.1% of that population (BTS, Travel Patterns of American Adults with Disabilities, 2022 NHTS)
- 12.2% of U.S. adults have a mobility disability (CDC, Disability Impacts All of Us, DHDS 2024 update)
- NYC subway elevators were available about 97.6% of 24-hour service hours in 2025 (MTA Open Data, hours-weighted)
- 13,746 NYC subway elevator outages in 2025, 7,079 of them unscheduled (MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability)
- 1,268 elevator entrapments in 2025 versus 931 in 2015 (MTA Open Data)
- 165 of 496 NYC subway station records (33.3%) are fully ADA accessible (MTA Open Data, Subway Stations dataset)
- 110 of 146 CTA rail stations (75%) are accessible; target year for 100% is 2038 (CTA, All Stations Accessibility Program)
- MBTA elevator uptime rose from 94% in 2005 to 99.5% by 2008; the current target is 99.4% or higher (MBTA, History of Accessibility)
- WMATA runs 320 elevators and 647 escalators, the most in North America (WMATA, Elevators and Escalators)
- $7.1 billion for station accessibility in the MTA 2025-2029 Capital Program, to make more than 60 stations newly accessible (MTA, Station Accessibility Upgrades)
- About $1.26 billion awarded across FTA ASAP rounds FY2022-23, FY2024 and FY2026 (FTA, ASAP project selections)
- 165 of 597 U.S. underground rail stations reported to the NTD were built before 1940 (FTA, NTD 2024 Stations and Facilities by Mode and Age)
1. Who Depends on Station Elevators
Elevator reliability is not a niche metric. 18.6 million Americans age 5 and older report a travel-limiting disability (Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Travel Patterns of American Adults with Disabilities, 2022 NHTS), and nearly half of them use a mobility aid. For riders on wheels, a station without a working elevator is not a slower route, it is no route.
The numbers also show who is most exposed. Adults 18 to 64 with disabilities are far more likely to live without a car, and they take fewer trips per day than people without disabilities. When transit fails them, the BTS data shows the default response is simply traveling less. The full breakdown is published on the BTS travel patterns with disabilities page.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Americans age 5+ with travel-limiting disabilities | 18.6 million (6.1%) | BTS, Travel Patterns of American Adults with Disabilities (2022 NHTS) |
| Adults 65+ with travel-limiting disabilities | 7.7 million (14.1% of age group) | BTS, Travel Patterns of American Adults with Disabilities (2022 NHTS) |
| Respondents with disabilities using any mobility aid | 49.3% | BTS, Travel Patterns of American Adults with Disabilities (2022 NHTS) |
| Use a manual scooter or wheelchair / motorized scooter or wheelchair | 9.4% / 8.8% | BTS, Travel Patterns of American Adults with Disabilities (2022 NHTS) |
| Adults 18-64 with disabilities in zero-vehicle households | 14.3% (9.4 points higher than peers without disabilities) | BTS, Travel Patterns of American Adults with Disabilities (2022 NHTS) |
| Daily trips, adults 18-64 with vs. without disabilities | 1.7 vs. 2.3 | BTS, Travel Patterns of American Adults with Disabilities (2022 NHTS) |
| Adults 18-64 with disabilities making zero trips on survey day | 40.2% | BTS, Travel Patterns of American Adults with Disabilities (2022 NHTS) |
| U.S. adults with a mobility disability | 12.2% | CDC, Disability Impacts All of Us (DHDS, July 2024 update) |
Context: the BTS figures come from the 2022 National Household Travel Survey, the most recent available data for this breakdown. The CDC mobility figure is self-reported serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs, a broader group than wheelchair users alone.
2. NYC Subway Elevator Reliability in 2025 and 2026
The MTA publishes monthly availability for every subway elevator, which makes New York the best-documented case study in the United States. Weighted by service hours, subway elevators were available about 97.6% of the time across 2025 and 98.0% during the AM peak (MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability). The catch is the long tail: in August 2026, 27 of 416 reporting elevators fell below 90% availability, and six recorded 0.0% because of extended scheduled work.
For a rider, an outage is binary. A 97.6% average still produced 13,746 elevator outages in 2025, and slightly more than half were unscheduled, meaning no advance warning to plan an alternate route. The raw monthly records are in the MTA NYCT Subway Elevator and Escalator Availability dataset.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Elevator availability, 24-hour, full year 2025 | about 97.6% (3,117,314 of 3,193,643 hours) | MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability 2025 |
| Elevator availability, AM peak, 2025 | about 98.0% (521,852 of 532,258 hours) | MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability 2025 |
| Elevator outages, 2025 | 13,746 total; 7,079 unscheduled (51.5%) | MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability 2025 |
| Elevator entrapments, 2025 | 1,268 | MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability 2025 |
| Escalator availability, 24-hour, 2025 | about 95.3% | MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability 2025 |
| Elevators reporting, August 2026 | 416 elevators, 278 escalators | MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability (Aug 2026) |
| Elevator availability, August 2026 | about 95.8%; 1,209 outages, 114 entrapments | MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability (Aug 2026) |
| Elevators below 90% availability, August 2026 | 27 of 416 (6.5%) | MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability (Aug 2026) |
Math note: availability percentages are hours-weighted, calculated as the sum of available hours divided by the sum of scheduled hours across all units in the period, using the dataset’s own 24-hour and AM-peak hour fields. MTA’s official monthly KPI may be computed differently.
3. A Decade of Subway Elevator Data: Better Averages, More Exposure
Over a decade, the story is quiet improvement hidden behind growing raw counts. Hours-weighted availability fell from about 96.7% in 2015 to about 96.1% in 2019, then climbed to about 97.6% in 2025 (MTA Open Data). Meanwhile, entrapments rose 36.2%, from 931 to 1,268, which sounds alarming until you notice elevator service hours grew 42.4% as new elevators came online.
Normalized, the entrapment rate actually eased from about 41.5 to about 39.7 per 100,000 elevator-hours. The lesson for agencies is that adding elevators raises the absolute number of failures a rider can hit, so reliability programs must scale with the fleet. The yearly series can be reproduced from the same MTA dataset, which starts in January 2015.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Elevator availability, 2015 | about 96.7% | MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability 2015 |
| Elevator availability, 2019 | about 96.1% | MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability 2019 |
| Elevator availability, 2024 | about 97.4% | MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability 2024 |
| Elevator availability, January-August 2026 | about 97.3% | MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability 2026 |
| Elevator entrapments, 2015 vs. 2025 | 931 vs. 1,268 (+36.2%) | MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability |
| Unscheduled elevator outages, 2015 vs. 2025 | 5,173 vs. 7,079 | MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability |
| Scheduled elevator service hours, 2015 vs. 2025 | 2,243,465 vs. 3,193,643 (+42.4%) | MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability |
| Entrapments per 100,000 elevator-hours, 2015 vs. 2025 | about 41.5 vs. about 39.7 | MTA Open Data, NYCT Elevator and Escalator Availability |
Math note: rates are entrapments divided by total scheduled 24-hour elevator hours, multiplied by 100,000. Percent changes compare 2025 with 2015 values from the same dataset.
4. How Many Stations Are Actually Accessible
Station coverage varies enormously by system age. Only 165 of 496 station records (33.3%) in New York’s subway dataset are fully ADA accessible, with 9 partially accessible and 322 not accessible (MTA Open Data, Subway Stations). Chicago sits at 75%, while Boston’s newer Orange and Red lines are fully accessible and its century-old Green Line trails at 63%.
New York also measures something most systems do not: whether the platform at an accessible station can actually be reached. In August 2026, the average platform at an accessible subway station was available 97.5% of the time, but the Bronx lagged at 93.8% (MTA Subway Accessible Station Platform Availability). Chicago’s figures come from the CTA accessibility page.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| NYC subway station records fully ADA accessible | 165 of 496 (33.3%); 9 partial, 322 not accessible | MTA Open Data, MTA Subway Stations (accessed Oct 2026) |
| NYC accessible-station platform availability, systemwide, Aug 2026 | 97.5% (395 platforms) | MTA Open Data, Subway Accessible Station Platform Availability |
| NYC accessible-station platform availability, Bronx, Aug 2026 | 93.8% | MTA Open Data, Subway Accessible Station Platform Availability |
| CTA rail stations accessible | 110 of 146 (75%) | CTA, Accessibility and All Stations Accessibility Program |
| MBTA Orange Line / Red Line stations accessible | 20 of 20 / 22 of 22 | MBTA, System-Wide Accessibility Improvements |
| MBTA Green Line stops accessible | 44 of 70 (63%) | MBTA, System-Wide Accessibility Improvements |
| MBTA Commuter Rail stations accessible | 117 of 142 (82%) | MBTA, System-Wide Accessibility Improvements |
| SEPTA accessible stations | more than 100 | SEPTA, Accessibility |
Context: the MTA dataset counts station records per line group, so a transfer complex can appear more than once; the MTA’s own published station count differs. Platform availability history shows the same metric at 92.4% in August 2019 and 97.9% in August 2025, so 2026 is slightly below last year.
5. Reliability Beyond the Subway: Commuter Rail, Boston and Washington
Outside the NYC subway, reported elevator uptime is higher, partly because commuter rail elevators see less use and partly because each agency defines availability differently. Long Island Rail Road elevators ran between 99.1% and 99.7% availability by branch in August 2026 (MTA LIRR Elevator and Escalator Availability), and Metro-North ranged from 97.94% to 99.72% (MTA Metro-North Elevator and Escalator Availability).
Boston shows what a legal settlement can do. Under the 2006 Daniels-Finegold agreement, the MBTA says elevator uptime rose from 94% in 2005 to 99.5% by 2008, and broken bus lifts or ramps fell from 19% of observations to 0% by 2025 (MBTA History of Accessibility). Washington runs the largest fleet: WMATA says it operates 320 elevators and 647 escalators, more than any other North American transit system.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| LIRR elevator availability by branch, Aug 2026 | 99.1% to 99.7% | MTA Open Data, LIRR Elevator and Escalator Availability |
| Metro-North elevator availability by branch, Aug 2026 | 97.94% to 99.72% | MTA Open Data, Metro-North Elevator and Escalator Availability |
| MBTA elevator uptime, 2005 vs. 2008 | 94% vs. 99.5% | MBTA, History of Accessibility (Daniels-Finegold) |
| MBTA current elevator uptime target | 99.4% or higher | MBTA, History of Accessibility |
| MBTA bus observations with broken lift or ramp, 2005 vs. 2025 | 19% vs. 0% | MBTA, History of Accessibility |
| WMATA elevators / escalators | 320 / 647 | WMATA, Elevators and Escalators |
| WMATA escalator availability, FY2026 scorecard | 94.6% (target: no less than 94.3%) | WMATA, Performance Scorecard FY2026 |
| WMATA MetroAccess paratransit on-time performance | 90.2% (target: no less than 90%) | WMATA, Performance Scorecard FY2026 |
Context: WMATA states that all Metrorail stations have elevators and riders can request a shuttle when an outage blocks their station. Its public scorecard page did not show an elevator availability figure when we accessed it, so we do not report one.
6. Funding the Retrofit: ASAP Grants and Capital Plans
Retrofitting a legacy station with elevators is among the most expensive projects a transit agency can undertake. The MTA has committed $7.1 billion in its 2025-2029 Capital Program to make more than 60 stations newly accessible (MTA Station Accessibility Upgrades), a figure larger than every federal ASAP round combined.
The federal program is real but modest by comparison. FTA’s All Stations Accessibility Program has awarded about $1.26 billion over three rounds ($686 million + $343 million + $232.8 million), with New York, Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia taking the largest checks (FTA All Stations Accessibility Program). Chicago’s own plan shows the gap: Phase Two is only 45% funded.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| FTA ASAP awards, FY2022-23 | $686 million, 16 projects, 9 states | FTA, ASAP FY22-23 Project Selections |
| FTA ASAP awards, FY2024 | $343 million, 8 projects | FTA, ASAP FY24 Project Selections |
| FTA ASAP awards, FY2026 (announced Sept 10, 2026) | $232,827,000, 8 projects, 5 states | FTA, ASAP FY26 Project Selections |
| Largest single ASAP award, FY2022-23 | $254,466,278 to the MTA (four Brooklyn and Bronx stations) | FTA, ASAP FY22-23 Project Selections |
| Largest ASAP award, FY2026 | $80,000,000 to SEPTA (22nd, 33rd and 36th Street trolley stations) | FTA, ASAP FY26 Project Selections |
| MTA 2025-2029 capital commitment to station accessibility | $7.1 billion, more than 60 stations | MTA, Station Accessibility Upgrades |
| CTA ASAP Phase One / Phase Two budget | $423.5 million (fully funded) / $617.5 million (45% funded) | CTA, All Stations Accessibility Program |
| ASAP program size cited by CTA | $1.75 billion (Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) | CTA, All Stations Accessibility Program |
Math note: $686 million + $343 million + $232.8 million = about $1.26 billion awarded across the three published rounds. The project lists are on the FY22-23, FY24 and FY26 selection pages.
7. Legacy Stations, Replacement Cycles and Deadlines
The inaccessible stations that remain are mostly old and underground. 165 of 597 underground fixed guideway stations reported to the National Transit Database (27.6%) were built before 1940 (FTA NTD 2024, Stations and Facilities by Mode and Age), before anyone designed transit around wheelchairs. Elevated stations skew old too, while at-grade stations are overwhelmingly newer.
Deadlines stretch decades. Chicago targets full accessibility in 2038, and New York aims for ADA access at 95% of stations by 2055. Both systems also face a second clock: elevators installed in the 1990s and 2000s now need replacement, so the MTA’s capital plans fund elevator replacements alongside new installations. The ADA compliance pressure is not limited to stations, as our ADA Title III web accessibility lawsuit statistics show for digital services.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. underground fixed guideway stations built before 1940 | 165 of 597 (27.6%) | FTA, NTD 2024 Stations and Facilities by Mode and Age |
| U.S. elevated fixed guideway stations built before 1940 | 105 of 731 (14.4%) | FTA, NTD 2024 Stations and Facilities by Mode and Age |
| U.S. at-grade fixed guideway stations built before 1940 | 159 of 2,091 (7.6%) | FTA, NTD 2024 Stations and Facilities by Mode and Age |
| CTA rail stations accessible when the ADA passed in 1990 | fewer than 10 (about 6%) | CTA, All Stations Accessibility Program |
| CTA target year for 100% accessible rail stations | 2038 (Phase One 2027, Phase Two 2028) | CTA, All Stations Accessibility Program |
| MTA subway stations made ADA accessible since 2020 | 42 | MTA, Station Accessibility Upgrades |
| MTA long-term goal | ADA access at 95% of stations by 2055 | MTA, Station Accessibility Upgrades |
| MTA elevator replacements, 2020-2024 plan / 2025-2029 plan | 78 / an additional 45 | MTA, Station Accessibility Upgrades |
Context: the CTA also plans to rehabilitate or replace all of its “160+ existing station elevators,” and the MBTA reports 75 new station elevators built with 55 more to come under its current program. Accessible voting and polling places face a similar legacy-building problem, covered in our accessible voting machine and poll site statistics.
Summary: Transit Station Elevator Reliability and Accessibility by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Americans with travel-limiting disabilities | 18.6 million (6.1%) | BTS, 2022 NHTS |
| Mobility aid use among people with travel-limiting disabilities | 49.3% | BTS, 2022 NHTS |
| U.S. adults with a mobility disability | 12.2% | CDC, DHDS 2024 update |
| NYC subway elevator availability, 2025 | about 97.6% | MTA Open Data |
| NYC subway elevator outages, 2025 | 13,746 (7,079 unscheduled) | MTA Open Data |
| NYC subway elevator entrapments, 2025 | 1,268 | MTA Open Data |
| Entrapments per 100,000 elevator-hours, 2015 vs. 2025 | about 41.5 vs. about 39.7 | MTA Open Data |
| NYC elevators below 90% availability, Aug 2026 | 27 of 416 | MTA Open Data |
| NYC subway station records fully ADA accessible | 165 of 496 (33.3%) | MTA Open Data |
| NYC accessible-station platform availability, Aug 2026 | 97.5% | MTA Open Data |
| CTA rail stations accessible | 110 of 146 (75%) | CTA |
| MBTA Green Line stops accessible | 44 of 70 (63%) | MBTA |
| MBTA elevator uptime, 2005 vs. 2008 | 94% vs. 99.5% | MBTA |
| LIRR elevator availability by branch, Aug 2026 | 99.1% to 99.7% | MTA Open Data |
| WMATA elevators / escalators | 320 / 647 | WMATA |
| MTA 2025-2029 station accessibility commitment | $7.1 billion, 60+ stations | MTA |
| FTA ASAP awards, three rounds | about $1.26 billion | FTA |
| Underground U.S. rail stations built before 1940 | 165 of 597 (27.6%) | FTA, NTD 2024 |
| MTA accessibility goal | 95% of stations by 2055 | MTA |
| CTA full accessibility target | 2038 | CTA |
Methodology and Sources
We pulled every figure directly from agency open-data portals, agency publications and federal datasets during October 2026. Where we calculated a rate (availability percentages, entrapments per elevator-hour, ASAP totals), the math is shown under the relevant table. Related reading on access for riders with disabilities: our service dog task training statistics.
- Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Travel Patterns of American Adults with Disabilities (2022 NHTS)
- CDC, Disability Impacts All of Us infographic (DHDS)
- MTA Open Data, NYCT Subway Elevator and Escalator Availability: Beginning 2015
- MTA Open Data, Subway Accessible Station Platform Availability: Beginning 2018
- MTA Open Data, MTA Subway Stations
- MTA Open Data, LIRR Elevator and Escalator Availability: Beginning 2019
- MTA Open Data, Metro-North Elevator and Escalator Availability: Beginning 2021
- MTA, Station Accessibility Upgrades
- CTA, All Stations Accessibility Program and CTA Accessibility
- MBTA, System-Wide Accessibility Improvements and MBTA, History of Accessibility
- WMATA, Elevators and Escalators, WMATA Performance Scorecard and WMATA Accessibility
- SEPTA, Accessibility
- FTA, All Stations Accessibility Program, with FY22-23, FY24 and FY26 project selection pages linked in section 6
- FTA, National Transit Database 2022-2024 Stations and Facilities (by Mode and Age)
- Data watch: MTA availability percentages here are hours-weighted calculations from the open dataset and can differ from the MTA’s official monthly KPI; the August 2026 dip (about 95.8%) includes six elevators at 0% during extended scheduled work. The MTA Subway Stations dataset counts station records by line group (496), not station complexes, so its accessible share differs from the MTA’s headline station count. Each agency defines elevator availability differently (24-hour vs. service hours, unit-level vs. platform-level), so cross-system comparisons are indicative only. BTS disability travel data is from the 2022 NHTS (most recent available data). FTA and BTS pages blocked direct fetching and were read through a text mirror; figures were checked against the original pages’ published text. WMATA’s scorecard did not display an elevator availability value at the time of access, and BART and TfL pages could not be read, so they are excluded. Several historic MTA platform-availability rows show inconsistent platform counts, so only the availability ratios are cited.
Last updated: October 4, 2026. We update this roundup quarterly, and the next refresh is expected when MTA Open Data posts the September 2026 elevator availability month and FTA releases the 2025 National Transit Database annual data.