Judge Sets July 22 Hearing in Disabled Lawsuit

The service cuts, the plaintiffs contend, will make their lives much harder, restricting crucial access to the cultural benefits of Manhattan as well as making it harder for them to get around in Brooklyn. The suit says it amounts to prohibited discrimination against “people with disabilities in violation of the law, denying them equal access to public accommodations.”

Speaking to the media, plaintiff Jean Ryan, who is confined to a wheel chair, said that she takes the X27 bus into Manhattan on the weekends, to shop, see friends, and go to museums. If the cuts go through, she says, she will have to depend solely on Access-A-Ride, which has its own problems, including the need to book the service two days in advance and to adhere to strict departure times. “When you’re listening to music,” she says, “sometimes you don’t know when a jam session is going to be over. That’s what I don’t like about Access-a-Ride. They say there will be wheelchair access to the subway station in 2020. That’s in ten years from now. That’s unacceptable.”

With the cancellation of weekend express bus service, said Councilman Vincent Gentile, “it’s almost as if the MTA is putting up a sign that says, ‘Brooklynites Not Welcome in Manhattan,’ – especially if you have a disability.”

Salvatore Strazzullo, the lead attorney, said, “We’re here for individuals who do not have the ability to get to places in the City if the MTA initiates these drastic cuts, or to doctor visits. They have the right to get around town just like I can, or like the members of the MTA Board of Directors can. The MTA has to understand reality: these individuals with physical and mental handicaps have to be able to have access to the City of New York.”

John Quaglione, District Manager for Senator Golden, said, “This is the end of the line of a six-month process that included public hearings and rallies. But unfortunately we’re here today. Individuals will be trapped in their homes if they have no access to buses.”