Now serving: splinters. Deuce to anyone with wheels or knees.<\/p>\n
Tennis fans from across the world will take transit to this month\u2019s U.S. Open \u2014 but if they depend on a wheelchair or other mobility, they might have trouble getting there: The 7 train and Long Island Rail Road stops at Mets-Willets Point station are rife with barriers that make the massive sports complex a nightmare for the disabled.<\/p>\n
Neither the subway nor LIRR station have elevators. Wheelchair users can exit the subway via a ramp off the Passerelle Boardwalk that connects to Flushing Meadows Corona Park USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center complex, but only if they took an eastbound train and only on Mets gamedays. The boardwalk \u2014 which passes by the LIRR entrance \u2014 is a splinter-ridden, bumpy and deteriorating nightmare to traverse on wheels.<\/p>\n
“My chair couldn\u2019t handle some of them,” said Eric Ryan, an avid tennis fan and wheelchair user who most recently attended the US Open in 2022. “I have weak muscles and my head and arms kept getting pushed around from all the bumps. I ended up putting on a chest strap to make sure I didn\u2019t fall out.”<\/p>\n
Ryan likes witnessing history \u2014 he saw Andy Roddick and Carlos Alcaraz win their first Grand Slam titles\u00a0\u2014 but doesn\u2019t expect to return any time soon after his 2022 experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It’s not that we don’t like to go out,” said Ryan, the owner of TRIPPr<\/a>, a transportation service for physically disabled people. “It\u2019s that the places we want to go rarely have us in mind.”<\/p>\n Ian MacManus, an occupational therapist who lives in Huntington, took his 77-year-old father-in-law to a qualifying US Open match last summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n The elder man, who has multiple sclerosis and walks with a cane, \u201crepeatedly, almost tripped and fell walking across the uneven wooden planks on that causeway from the LIRR,\u201d MacManus said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very dangerous because boards were sticking up, separated and there were bolts and hazardous triple components, all along the wooden walkway.\u201d<\/p>\n The MTA included an accessibility project at the LIRR station in its current capital plan, but not the adjacent subway, and the project remains does not have funding. As far as the subway facility goes, renderings for Mets owner Steve Cohen\u2019s proposed casino show a brand new and elevator-accessible station house in place of the current one, which opened in its current form for the 1939 World\u2019s Fair.<\/p>\n However, neither plan addresses the historic boardwalk, which falls under the city Parks Department\u2019s jurisdiction. Parks has made piecemeal fixes in recent years in advance of a long-awaited reconstruction: The city spent $1.5 million back in 2013 to study a renovation, which was finally announced in 2021 and allocated $146.2 million<\/a> in the city\u2019s most recent budget.<\/p>\n City officials have pledged full ADA accessibility when the project wraps up \u2014 likely years from now.<\/p>\n \u201cNYC Parks staff are dedicated to making the Passerelle boardwalk safe for patrons by repairing and replacing damaged sections, with 200+ boards replaced in just the last two years,\u201d Parks spokesperson Judd Faulkner said in a statement. \u201cThe labor-intensive efforts are focused on ensuring the bridge remains usable until the larger project is underway.\u201d<\/p>\n The MTA, meanwhile, coordinated with USTA this year to designate specific Access-A-Ride pick-up and drop-off locations for the first time ever, officials said. The spots will be near the \u201cChampions\u201d entrance to the tennis center, according to MTA spokesman David Steckel.<\/p>\n But Access-A-Ride trips must be pre-scheduled a day prior. Other services, like Ryan\u2019s company TRIPPr, that allows shorter-term booking may not have access.<\/p>\n \u2018Something needs to be fixed\u2019<\/p>\n