SEPTA recently finished the Girard and Spring Garden station renovations on the Broad Street line. The Cost was $30 million. The money came from stimulus programs sometime after the housing bubble burst. The rule with stimulus funds is that money can only be spent on "shovel ready" projects. SEPTA has had plans drawn up to install elevators at stations for many years. These plans were in response to Federal handicap accessibility legislation of the 80's or 90's I believe.
Before the renovations, both stations had only the two south side entrances available. Now both stations obviously have elevators, and all four corners have entrances. But from here it gets wacky and just plain stupid. At both stations, two of the four entrances are only entrances Monday through Thursday, 12 noon to 4:30 pm or something really stupid like that. They are exits only the rest of the time. As if I should be looking for a plastic sign pinned above the stairwell to inform me of such foolishness. Of course I got downstairs, gimpy with a bad knee, before a pathetically scribbled cardboard sign in the window of the vacant ticket window informed me of my folly.
Now really, how much does it cost to install two elevators? To be fair, both stations benefitted from some upgraded interior design, and Spring Garden Station had some wiring work done to it as well. But the four entrances that they opened up (almost exclusively for exiting) were already there; they just had to redo the stairs and put the already leaky semi-roofs on.
Handicap access is a great amenity for the people and a point of pride in our society. But doubling the number of entrances at two stations, only to use them as exits 75% of the time is a total waste of taxpayer money, and a huge inconvenience to countless thousands of people going forward that wrongly assume that an open subway entrance is in fact an entrance. There are many SEPTA riders that don't need an elevator, but have compromised mobility and will surely feel the frustration I felt the other day.