Arlington T Station reopens

Arlington T station reopens with disabled access
Project spurred by lawsuit

By Noah Bierman, Globe Staff | June 2, 2009

Karen Schneiderman used her wheelchair to get through Arlington Station yesterday, an unremarkable action by many standards but a first for her and other disabled transit riders.

For the first time in its 88-year history, the MBTA station is completely accessible to those with disabilities, a transformation celebrated yesterday with ribbon cutting and speeches.

"In a way, I wish this would be a ho-hum event," said Schneiderman, a community organizer with the Boston Center for Independent Living, which has alternately fought and worked with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to improve access.

The renovated station, with $22.7 million spent on three elevators, ramps, a digital sign board, public restrooms, and other upgrades, is the first Green Line station between Park Street and Kenmore Square with elevators. For the first time, people who use crutches, strollers, and wheelchairs have transit access to a key part of Boston and the Back Bay, within close range of shopping on Newbury Street, the Boston Public Library, and the Public Garden.

Schneiderman called the opening a great moment, but also sees it as another belated step toward making the presence of disabled riders "less dramatic" on the T and more "in the mix" with the life of the city. For too long, it has been a big deal to ride the T on a whim to the Back Bay, she said. (The Back Bay and Prudential stations have elevators, but they are not along the neighborhood's central corridor.)

"This is a very good thing, but it's not the conclusion of anything," she said. "It's just adding another really large piece for people."

The MBTA has been moving more aggressively to enhance access since settling a class-action discrimination lawsuit in 2006, though several renovations have been subject to lengthy construction delays and cost overruns. The Arlington renovation was about 15 years in the making, with various legal, engineering, and financial issues holding it up along the way, said Christopher Hart, a technical adviser to the MBTA and director of urban and transit projects for the Institute for Human Centered Design. Construction at the station began nearly four years ago, and the main entrance at Arlington and Boylston streets has been closed for more than two years.

Renovations to Kenmore Station on the Green Line, Ashmont Station on the Red Line, and Maverick Station on the Blue Line are set for completion later this year. Science Park Station on the Green Line and Government Center Station on the Green and Blue lines are among those expected to follow.

Older stations in the heart of the city have been particularly challenging. The Copley reconstruction on the Green Line was halted in December after workers cracked a wall of the Old South Church, one of the city's most prominent historic sites.

Excavation work on elevators remains on hold, though it continues in other areas of the station, including an emergency exit on Boylston Street, said Joe Pesaturo, a T spokesman. Engineers are close to presenting a revised construction plan to the church's representatives and engineers, Pesaturo said. Completion of that project, previously scheduled for this year, has been pushed back to fall 2010 under a draft schedule, he said.

Designers on the Arlington project worked with Arlington Street Church to maintain the area's historic character, and workers were able to avoid damaging any property. The Rev. Kim Crawford Harvie attended yesterday's opening ceremony and called the renovated station that now adjoins her church "another civil rights milestone," as she blessed it.

Activists from the disabled community who attended yesterday's opening gave the station high marks. Tom Gilbert of Somerville and Reggie Clark of Brookline were both tapping the slate floors with their canes, pointing out that a smooth floor is much easier to navigate than rough bricks.

"This is not a patch job; this is not a fix-it job," said Ben Haynes, chairman of the MBTA access advisory committee. "This is an all-out effort . . . We may have fought like cats and dogs, but it was always with the best intentions."

Noah Bierman can be reached at nbierman@globe.com.
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