After Community Protests, Washington Heights Gets Free Shuttle Buses
Residents in Washington Heights, who have long depended on three subway elevators to avoid steep inclines in their neighborhood, won a victory in their dispute with the MTA Friday. The authority said it will provide free shuttle buses, just as a year-long construction project was about to begin on the A Line elevators.
The MTA announced months ago that the elevators, which have been in use since 1932, would be rebuilt. News of that closure upset residents, many of them elderly, who mounted an online petition drive which gained more than 1,500 signatures.
The new shuttles will run between Broadway and Fort Washington Avenue from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily and make stops at the 181st Street station entrance at Overlook Terrace and 184th Street; another entrance at Fort Washington Avenue and West 185th Street; and a spot close to the 190th Street station at Fort Washington Avenue. The buses are scheduled to run every 20 minutes.
“Together, we demanded what our community needs to ensure transit equity during these elevator closures,” State Sen. Robert Jackson, who started the petition, wrote in an email to inform petition-signers of their victory.
The elevators, which connect Fort Washington Avenue to Overlook Terrace through an entrance at 184th Street, had served Washington Heights residents since around that time that Franklin Roosevelt was elected president.
Ilse Gruenspecht, 92, used to take the elevators almost every day, but not for the subway. She needed the lift to go more than 100 feet uphill to her apartment on Cabrini Boulevard, after having lunch at her senior center on Bennett Avenue, or shopping at the Key Food supermarket on Broadway.
Annie Nussbaum, 89, made a similar commute. She lives down the hill at Overlook Terrace and used the subway elevator to go up to Fort Washington Avenue, where she did her banking and laundry.
Both women were struggling to find another way to manage the neighborhood’s steep hills. Until the shuttle service was announced, the alternatives left to Gruenspecht and Nussbaum were almost impossible for people their age: to climb about 130 stairs at 187th Street, or to walk up a slope all the way to 190th Street.
“It would help a lot,” Gruenspecht said of the buses. “ I’m really thrilled that this happened.”
“This is a good idea especially for older people who can’t easily walk around. Though I still think the MTA should have kept one of the elevators working,” said Frank Miller, 65, a shuttle-bus passenger on his way up to Fort Washington Avenue to dine at an Indian restaurant.
Elisheva Kirschenbaum, head of the Osher Early Learning Center for children ages 2 to 5, was also pleased by the news. Her preschool is located down the hill, and her teachers have used the elevators to take the children to a playground at Bennett Park. The buses could also help parents who go to drop their kids off using strollers. “Hopefully they’ll be often enough and safe so that we can rely on them,” Kirschenbaum said.
