A man from Minneapolis said that a brain injury and chronic arthritis had left him unable to drive a lawsuit against the urban council to discriminate against persons with disabilities.

Michael Fiorito lives near Blue Line Lake Street/Midtown. He relied on taking a light railway train to reach the dates of the doctor and job interviews. Fioreto said that reaching the station is often banned from people who are unable to climb its long trips from the stairs.

He said in the case recently filed in the American provincial court, that the repeated breakdowns of the station’s elevators and the moving stairs that turned to leave people who use wheelchairs, sticks and pedestrians without reaching the train.

“I got severe testimonies from people who had a stroke, from people who need a wheelchair, from security guards who saw elevators down for weeks,” Fioreto said in an interview with Minnesota Star Tribune. “I have pictures.”

He asked to comment on the lawsuit, officials of the MET Council, the Regional Planning Authority that runs the blue line, said they could not discuss the continuous litigation. But in the court files in response to Fiuro’s accusations, they describe his allegations as “unnecessary allegations and a little argument.”

They said that there is no record of a number of interruptions in the elevators that he claimed had happened last year and earlier this year. While recognizing continuous issues at the station after the start of the Covid-19s and the killing of George Floyd in May 2020, officials wrote: “The transit metro witnessed an increase in drug use, crime, vandalism, and other forms of abuse-most of which were at the hands of individuals who did not try from the contestants on the metro.

However, officials have written, developed Metro Transit and began implementing plans to improve security and accessibility, and “I have completed a long list of capital improvements to the station, including maintenance on moving and elevator stairs, with more planned improvements in the future.”

Lake Street/Midtown Light Rail is one of the most busy stations in Blue Line – and one of the most troubled. Capital improvements will begin in the near future.

Source: Minnesota Star TribuneE