Improving subway, bus, and rail accessibility is a central MTA priority
Since 2020, the MTA has delivered accessibility improvements across the system, completing 62 accessible stations to date at three times the pace of prior years. This includes:
- 48 newly accessible subway stations, including eight completed so far in 2026. This represents nearly 10% of all MTA stations becoming fully accessible in under a decade
- 14 new accessibility projects completed at LIRR and Metro‑North stations
On top of new accessible stations, the MTA also replaced more than 140 subway elevators, including 21 at 13 stations in 2026 alone.
In addition, all 5,800 MTA buses have been accessible since the 1990s. Newer buses replacing older vehicles offer improved boarding and customer information features.
The MTA is investing nearly $7.1 billion in station accessibility through its 2025–2029 Capital Plan. This plan will make 60 more stations accessible with 33 currently under construction. In addition to new accessibility projects, 45 subway elevators will also be modernized. This long-term commitment to systemwide accessibility puts the MTA on track to meet its goal of making 95% of the system accessible by 2055.
Making the system more accessible supports ridership growth
As the MTA makes the system more accessible and more riders take advantage of fare benefit programs, ridership is growing. These improvements make the network easier to use for riders with a wide range of needs.
Riders with qualifying disabilities can enroll in the MTA’s Reduced-Fare program, which provides half-priced fares on subways and buses. Riders qualifying for the MTA’s paratransit service can also take up to four free subway and bus trips per day by opting into the Zero-Fare program. From June 2022 to June 2026, subway and bus ridership among participants in these programs increased at nearly twice the rate of paid ridership on subways and buses.
Paratransit fills the gap where the transit system—and our city—are not fully accessible
Even with these investments and improvements, many New Yorkers still rely on paratransit services to get around. Paratransit is a federally mandated service that provides origin-to-destination (i.e., door-to-door) transportation for people with disabilities who cannot use “fixed-route” transit, like the bus network and subway system, for some or all their trips. According to the Federal Transit Administration, trips taken on paratransit should be comparable to trips on the fixed-route system, paratransit is “by nature a shared-ride service”, and “the standard of service is not intended to reflect that of a taxi service.”1
The City of New York first established paratransit service in 1984, prior to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The MTA took over the service in 1993.
Access-A-Ride (AAR), the MTA’s paratransit service, operates a fleet of about 1,100 lift-equipped vehicles and a network of thousands of taxis and for-hire vehicles. As per ADA requirements, AAR service is available within three‑quarters of a mile of any bus route or subway station and operates during the same hours and days, making it a 24/7 service covering every square mile of New York City. Federal regulation also dictates that paratransit fares cannot cost more than two times the fare of the fixed-route system. Today, MTA’s AAR riders pay a $3.00 per‑trip fare, the same as subway and bus pricing.
In New York City, riders can use paratransit if they are unable to board or ride a subway or bus or if they are unable to navigate to or from bus stops or subway stations because of a disability. That means both the transit system and the city infrastructure that surrounds it—including the condition of bus stops and sidewalks, curb cuts, and Accessible Pedestrian Signals, which are all built, maintained, or overseen by the City of New York—must be accessible.
An inaccessible bus stop due to roadway construction
The City of New York covers the largest share of AAR’s operating budget
Since the 1990s, AAR has been funded by four sources: the City of New York, State dedicated taxes (specifically, urban taxes), fare revenue, and the MTA’s operating budget. The share from each source has changed over time. In 2025, the distribution looked like:
- The City of New York’s contribution represented about two-thirds of AAR’s operating budget in 2025. The MTA submits its expenses to the City each month, and the City reimburses an eligible portion of those costs. In 2023, State legislation increased the City’s contribution from 50% of operating cost to cover either 80% of the total or 50% of the total plus an additional $165 million in each fiscal year, whichever is less. This funding package helped stabilize the MTA’s financial position, which had been weakened from the pandemic.
- Another 5% comes from dedicated taxes collected by the State that support the MTA’s broader systemwide operating costs. Most notably, this includes funding from the Urban Tax, a combination of real estate transfer and property transaction taxes in NYC.
- Fare revenue collected from AAR trips represents 4% of AAR operating costs.
- The MTA funds the remaining gap out of its operating budget, about one-quarter of funding.
The MTA has accelerated efforts to improve and expand AAR service in recent years, supported by increased City funding
Over the last few years, the MTA has doubled down on its efforts to make AAR better by increasing reliability, making registration easier, and enhancing the customer experience. Supported by funding from the City since 2023, the MTA has delivered a range of improvements:
- More reliable service: In 2025, 97% of trips were picked up within the 30-minute on-time performance window, and more than 92% were picked up within 20 minutes. 80% of riders reported positive experiences.
- A modernized fleet: The MTA has replaced 36% of its fleet, about 400 dedicated paratransit vehicles, since the pandemic, improving reliability and accessibility.
- More drivers and a larger fleet: AAR’s broker program, expanded in 2019, allows AAR to provide trips using taxi or for-hire vehicles (FHVs), in addition to the MTA’s dedicated vehicles. Investments in this program have helped AAR provide more trips by taking advantage of the city’s large network of FHVs, and by providing better training and compensation for NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission-licensed drivers. In 2025, about two-thirds of AAR trips were completed through the broker program.
- Better customer-facing technology: New digital tools allow riders to book and track trips through a mobile app and pay with OMNY.
- Simpler enrollment processes and more locations: In 2024, New York City Transit launched a streamlined online form for paratransit eligibility inquiries. It also opened a new in-person assessment center in Manhattan, ensuring every borough now has at least one assessment center. These improvements helped more customers enroll, bringing the total number of eligible riders to more than 200,000.
- Continuation of the e-hail pilot: Since 2017, AAR has partnered with taxi and FHV providers to offer same‑day, on‑demand trips for a small pilot group of riders, expanding the pilot in 2023. Strong initial results led the MTA to increase subsidized trips in 2024. Continued City funding has facilitated the program’s ongoing growth as both ridership and operating costs increase.
With more new registrants and better service, ridership has doubled in the last four years
Paratransit ridership has grown significantly in recent years because better service has attracted new riders to join the AAR system and because existing AAR customers are using AAR more frequently. More riders are now choosing AAR for daily, routine trips to work, school, errands, and social activities, rather than just occasional medical appointments.
Paratransit ridership, like other modes, experienced declines in ridership during the pandemic, but recovered far faster than fixed-route ridership. By June 2026, weekday paid ridership reached 175% of its June 2019 level, dramatically higher than the subway’s 74% and the bus system’s 61% recovery over the same period. Last year, AAR delivered 11.5 million trips, about 50% higher than pre-pandemic peaks.
By June 2026, AAR regularly served 50,000 riders on a typical weekday, double the June 2022 trip volume. That’s more than the Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. paratransit providers combined, and more than the entire transportation system of many American cities on an average weekday, including the MATA in Memphis, TARC in Louisville and WeGo Public Transit in Nashville.
The operational cost impacts of AAR ridership growth far exceed the cost impact of ridership growth on fixed-route transit
On a per-rider basis, paratransit service is inherently more expensive to operate than fixed-route transit. Adding one new subway or bus rider doesn’t require putting a new train or bus in service and adding more operator hours to the schedule. But paratransit customers determine their trip origin, destination, and pickup time. That means every new paratransit ride requires more resources, even if that ride is going to be shared with another customer for part of the trip. Therefore, the increase in paratransit ridership results in nearly proportional increases in operating costs, unlike the fixed route system where existing capacity helps accommodate added riders. And that structural difference in the operating cost model is exacerbated by considerable, sustained increases in ridership.
Despite adding more service, the MTA is making the AAR operation more efficient and driving down cost per trip
To support the growing expense associated with continued ridership growth, the MTA has focused on making the AAR operation more cost efficient, all while delivering more and better service. In 2025, the total AAR budget was $855 million. Most of that money goes to providing trips. The budget also includes the 24/7 call center to manage bookings, labor, fuel, insurance, and other costs. Through a range of operational efficiency initiatives, the MTA has lowered the budgeted cost per AAR trip every year since the pandemic, when adjusted for inflation. From 2019 to 2025, the per trip cost fell 22%, even with 37% more trips delivered over the same period.
Some of the MTA’s recent efficiency efforts include:
- Stabilizing call center costs by shifting a significant segment of customers to online booking.
- Expanding the broker program, moving most trips to taxis and for-hire vehicles, which helps control transportation expenses. In 2025, approximately two-thirds of AAR trips were completed through the broker program.
- Productivity gains in dedicated fleet planning have increased trips per hour, modestly reducing the per trip cost.
- A major planned overhaul of the program’s scheduling and dispatching platform is expected to yield additional efficiencies—and improvements to service reliability—starting in 2027.
Cost efficiency improvements cannot offset the broader financial impact of rapidly increasing demand and limited farebox recovery
AAR’s annual budget growth directly mirrors the trajectory of its ridership growth, because most of AAR’s expenses are direct transportation costs and because every additional rider requires their own dedicated resources. The budget growth has created a funding gap that efficiency measures alone cannot close.
Unlike subway and bus service, AAR fares contribute little to cover the MTA’s AAR operating costs. The $3.00 fare represents just 4% of the average $78 operating cost per AAR trip in 2026. By comparison, the fare covers 36% of operating cost on the fixed‑route system.2 As the MTA closes the gap with its operating budget, the resulting imbalance is stark: AAR’s annual operating budget is equivalent to roughly 20% of the bus operating budget while serving just 2.5% as many bus riders.
This challenge is not unique to New York: the U.S. average farebox recovery for paratransit services is about 4%, and that share has declined in recent years as external cost pressures like fuel prices and insurance increase.3 Despite effective efforts to manage and reduce costs where possible within the AAR operation, the paratransit fare structure requires fares to remain closely aligned with fixed route prices, despite it being a more expensive service to operate. As a result, farebox recovery is inherently limited compared to fixed route transit. Even if the MTA were to charge the maximum fare allowed by the ADA, it would still only recoup 8% of the paratransit per trip cost.
The current pace of growth is not sustainable and threatens the MTA’s financial stability, worsened by the immediate risk of a reduction in City funding
Annual paratransit costs are projected to rise to over $1.2 billion by 2030, a 100% growth from 2019 and higher than the projected growth rate for the MTA’s other modes.
The most significant near-term risk is the substantial reduction in the City’s funding contribution. The City’s contribution is capped rather than set at a fixed percentage of operating expenses. As a result, the MTA pays not just a higher absolute amount but also a larger share of the AAR budget each year as ridership and expenses rise. Each year, as paratransit ridership grows, the MTA reaches the City’s contribution cap earlier in the year. Instead of being reimbursed for 80% of all monthly expenses year-round, this fiscal year the MTA will receive that higher reimbursement rate for only eight or nine months before hitting the mandated cap. For the rest of the year, the City pays 50% of the expenses instead of 80%, and the MTA must cover the rest. The cap on the City’s contribution forces the MTA to more deeply subsidize paratransit as the service grows, at a time when the MTA is striving to reduce its overall operating budget to decrease deficits.
Though this would be resolved by appropriately scaling funding to cover ridership growth, there is a risk the City will reduce support for paratransit in the coming years. The 2023 legislation establishing the City’s current funding level expires in July 2027. Without new legislation, the City’s contribution will drop to a flat 50% of net operating costs, even lower than today’s contribution. This would be a stark reversal in the City’s financial support for the recent growth and improvement of paratransit service.
Federal limits on farebox recovery leave few other mechanisms for closing the widening expense gap. Door‑to‑door, individualized service inherently generates a new trip with every new rider. There are practical limits to reducing per‑trip costs without considerable modifications to both paratransit and bus service that enable overall service cost reduction.
Reverting to the City’s pre-2023 funding level means that the MTA’s annual operating deficits will rise by an estimated $300 million per year starting in 2028, absent major changes to service. The fixed‑route network is the most cost-effective transit option for New Yorkers, and New York taxpayers and the MTA are fully invested in making that system not just legally compliant but the mode of choice for as many people as possible. Longer-term, continued capital investments to make the entire system accessible are essential for keeping New Yorkers moving and ensuring the financial stability of the MTA.
However, there will always be a need for paratransit services, and until the city and fixed-route system are more widely accessible, the near-term financial threat to sustain this level of paratransit ridership growth must be addressed. The projected deficit places enormous pressure on the MTA to redirect funds from elsewhere in our operating budget to cover AAR costs at a time when the MTA must achieve hundreds of millions of dollars in annual cost savings to continue providing the full range of services that riders rely on. The immediate funding risks for paratransit service can only be met by all our partners in government working together with the MTA.
Footnotes
- U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration. FTA Civil Rights–ADA FAQ. At what point is a paratransit ride no longer comparable to fixed route based on the time spent traveling? June 2017.
- Fixed route transit excludes MTA Bus Company service.
- RideCo. Controlling the cost curve: De‑risking the future of ADA paratransit. American Public Transportation Association. August 2026.