Columbia University Will Pay for Elevator at 125th Street Subway Stop

After more than five years of prodding from local residents, elected officials and the MTA, Columbia University will partially pay for accessibility upgrades to the No. 1 line’s towering 125th St. station, THE CITY has learned.

The Ivy League school will contribute $33 million for an elevator linking the street with the stop’s mezzanine level and to widen escalators at the southwest corner of Broadway and West 125th St. The MTA will cover the costs for two other lifts that will connect to station platforms, along with additional station repairs.

A formal announcement will be made at a later date.

The total price tag for the project has yet to be determined, officials said, with the design process to begin this year and the start of construction targeted for 2028. Similar accessibility projects typically take two years to complete, according to MTA officials, with costs ranging between $70 million and $80 million.

“We’re making this unprecedented push across the entire system to add accessibility in all places where it’s possible,” Sean Fitzpatrick, deputy chief of staff at MTA Construction & Development, told THE CITY. “We’re thrilled to be able to do it here.”

The MTA has committed to making at least 60 more stations come into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 as part of its nearly $70 billion 2025-2029 capital plan for systemwide upkeep and improvements.

Since 2020, the transportation authority has fast-tracked ADA work, adding elevators or ramps at 57 stations while facing a court mandate to make 95 percent of all stations accessible by 2055.

The agreement between the MTA and Columbia marks a major step forward in the years-long campaign by local residents and elected officials to make the 121-year-old station next to the university’s Manhattanville campus fully accessible. The university had previously said “public investments” should fund additional improvements at the station beyond the widening of the escalators.

“All of our advocacy efforts take a long time,” said Dave Robinson, president of the Morningside Heights Community Coalition, which has pressed for the upgrades alongside the Elevator Lobby advocacy group. “This one has been particularly frustrating.”

As part of the 2007 Manhattanville Campus land-use approval process, Columbia was required to widen the escalators at one corner of the 125th St. station.

“It’s a contribution that should help with accessibility for people with disabilities and the accessibility for folks at this point who have to go up a very narrow and aged escalator,” said Robert Kasdin, senior executive vice president at Columbia. “So we’re very excited to do this.”

The 50-foot-tall station — which has escalators leading to a level with staircases that connect with both platforms — is near the NYCHA Grant Houses development and the Morningside Gardens co-op complex.

“That’s honestly sort of the underpinning of this,” said Robinson of the Morningside Heights Community Coalition. “Both complexes have elderly and disabled populations and they have this ridiculously difficult subway station to navigate.”

MTA data shows that the escalators at the 125th St. stop were in service just over 88 percent of the time from January 2021 through February, with that number falling as low as 51 percent in February 2021. The authority’s own numbers show that station escalators had 48 outages last year, including 41 that were unscheduled. That marked the station’s highest number of escalator outages in a decade.

“Seven days a week, 365 days a year, I’ve been wishing for an elevator at this station,” Rodolfo Serrano, 72, said last month as he walked out of the station with a cane on a day when its escalators were out of service.

Local residents and elected officials have repeatedly rallied for enhanced accessibility at a stop that serves 6,500 riders daily and which sits along a stretch of the No. 1 line whose closest set of subway elevators is four stops south at 96th St.

To the north, the MTA is presently adding elevators at the No. 1 line’s 137th Street-City College station, with that work set to be completed this summer. The transit authority’s current five-year capital plan also calls for elevators to be added to the Cathedral Parkway-110th St. station on the B and C lines.

Fitzpatrick said the involvement of advocates from the Elevator Lobby and several elected officials amounted to critical support that made the MTA and Columbia “make sure we were prioritizing getting to an agreement.”

Kasdin said the accessibility upgrades are central to Columbia’s expanding presence north of its main Morningside Heights campus, which extends between 114th and 120th streets. The Manhattanville campus opened nearly a decade ago and houses the university’s business school, a science center, a center for the arts and more.

“As our presence in West Harlem has started and grown, we have committed to make sure that not only do we do no harm, but that we continue to improve the lives of our students, our faculty, our staff and, importantly, the community,” he said.

Additional reporting by Kennedy Sessions.

Jose is THE CITY’s transportation reporter, where he covers the latest developments and policies impacting traffic and transit in the city.