The New York subway system is saddled with more than three dozen chronically broken elevators, but the MTA would rather fight activists suing to get them fixed than use the money to repair them, critics raged this week.
In the past week, 35 to 43 elevators were out of service on any given day, up to 13% of all elevators, including many at busy stations like Times Square and Union Square, according to the MTA’s elevator status page .
Yet the Metropolitan Transit Authority has spent millions of dollars and eight years fighting a federal class-action lawsuit brought by disabled New Yorkers over the broken lifts.
The suit, filed in April 2017 on behalf of three disabled New Yorkers, has seen more than 20 delays, six different judges, 11 lawyers hired by the MTA from four different private firms, 20 depositions, and more than 10,000 pages of motions…