Appeals panel orders SEPTA to install 15th Street elevators

Though SEPTA is still considering whether it will file an appeal, Disabled in Action of Pennsylvania is victorious for now. The group won an eight-year-long battle against SEPTA today when a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld a ruling requiring the authority to install two elevators at the 15th Street subway station.

PlanPhilly has the full report on the case, which hinged on whether renovations made to the station in 1999 qualified as “alterations,” which would have required SEPTA to make the area handicap accessible.

SEPTA says the decade-old work shouldn’t be considered an alteration. The judges disagreed and basically told SEPTA to c’mon already with the elevators, writing: “[the definition of ‘alteration] must be construed with all the liberality necessary to achieve such purposes.”