MNRR ADA Compliance and Disabled/Handicapped Access

This is still a main freight line (sometimes long through trains are routed here, but not as heavy as the Erie and EL days).

NS still runs freight to Croxton Yard in NJ,not sure if ShopRite DC is still getting cars,M&NJ gets cars.

NS should really have no right to restrict anything. They run one turn job to Campbell Hall and a local as far as Middletown. 99% of the traffic is passenger traffic on the line. I have no idea why MTA doesn't just buy the line outright.

Where is ShopRite on the line?

Switch to the ShopRite DC is on the long straight section of track between Campbell Hall and Middletown

SecaucusJunction wrote: I have no idea why MTA doesn't just buy the line outright.

$$$?

SecaucusJunction wrote:NS should really have no right to restrict anything. They run one turn job to Campbell Hall and a local as far as Middletown. 99% of the traffic is passenger traffic on the line. I have no idea why MTA doesn't just buy the line outright.

A change in ownership on the line wouldn't impact the need for extra-dimensional clearances. For example, up around Boston, the MBTA owns the line through Winchester. In upgrading Winchester station to high-level platforms, they will be installing a gauntlet track for extra-dimensional Pan Am freights. It has probably been years since the last time a wide car came down this line, but unless Pan Am signs away their right to wide freight, that's just the way it is. CSX only just recently signed away their right to run wide freights east of Framingham, and now the MBTA is free to build high-level platforms in Newton without gauntlets or bypasses.

BUMP: https://www.lohud.com/story/news/transi ... 542182002/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

MTA lawsuit highlights problems at Metro-North stations for the disabled
...
How many stations are accessible?
Accessibility, and whether or not a station needs to be made accessible, can sometimes boil down to a matter of opinion.

Daniel Brown, an attorney who represented the Westchester Independent Living Center pro-bono in a 2014 lawsuit that forced Metro-North to build an elevator at the Port Chester station, said the ADA only mandates that key stations be made accessible.

The three largest stations in the system — Grand Central Terminal, Stamford and White Plains — are. Many of the smaller stations are not.

The law can force them to become accessible if changes, like a new staircase, are made to the station or if significant upgrades are made, but the thresholds are not always clear and sometimes have to be sorted out in the courts.

"It's been many, many years since the ADA and there's been a lot of construction going on," Brown said. "If you ask me, there are a lot of stations that should be accessible, but are not."
...

BostonUrbEx wrote:

SecaucusJunction wrote:NS should really have no right to restrict anything. They run one turn job to Campbell Hall and a local as far as Middletown. 99% of the traffic is passenger traffic on the line. I have no idea why MTA doesn't just buy the line outright.

A change in ownership on the line wouldn't impact the need for extra-dimensional clearances. For example, up around Boston, the MBTA owns the line through Winchester. In upgrading Winchester station to high-level platforms, they will be installing a gauntlet track for extra-dimensional Pan Am freights. It has probably been years since the last time a wide car came down this line, but unless Pan Am signs away their right to wide freight, that's just the way it is. CSX only just recently signed away their right to run wide freights east of Framingham, and now the MBTA is free to build high-level platforms in Newton without gauntlets or bypasses.

I assume that would be the only guantlet track in Massachusetts, certainly on the MBTA CR system. Does MN use gauntlet tracks to solve the high/wide issue?

Someone should document the cost of ADA compliance, and count the number of wheelchair bound or frail passengers, and report the cost per passenger. The situation with MA being super strict paralyzes the MBTA from upgrading anything for fear of triggering full ADA requirements - which they accidentally did at one station (Waverley) just by doing repairs. So you need a reasonableness exeption that MA doesn't have.

Where does ADA funding come from? Feddybucks? Or Unfunded Mandate?

BandA wrote:I assume that would be the only guantlet track in Massachusetts, certainly on the MBTA CR system. Does MN use gauntlet tracks to solve the high/wide issue?

Nope, no gauntlets on MN. I guess the remaining freight customers just don't take over-dimension loads.