Sen. Andrew Gounardes and transit advocates rallied Wednesday to push for the city’s transit system to be made more accessible for elderly and disabled people. 

Demonstrators are calling to secure congestion pricing funds so that more subways in the city can have improvements, like elevators. 

Gounardes says the 18th Avenue D-line station in Bensonhurst is one of four subway stations set to receive accessibility upgrades under the proposed 2020-2024 MTA Capital Plan. 

He says the congestion pricing funds would give the stations a separate stream of funding that he’s hoping to get soon so those upgrades can be made. 

"Demanding that the MTA stick to their promise to include stations like 18th Avenue in the Capital Plan, and to do everything in their power to expedite the funding streams through congestion pricing, through federal assistance, through state assistance, through whatever means possible to make sure that we can actually build these elevators on time like we promised,” said Gounardes. 

News 12 reached out to the MTA, and it responded with a statement saying, “The MTA has re-started the MTA’s historic $51.5 billion historic capital plan and is moving forward aggressively. The Authority has completed elevators at 11 stations just since the start of the pandemic. We are using the additional State and City sales taxes and the mansion tax the Legislature previously authorized to pay for projects and anticipate in later years benefiting from the revenues we receive from our congestion pricing program. We also are calling on the House to pass President Biden's infrastructure bill already approved by the Senate thanks to Senate Majority Leader Schumer that would greatly benefit the MTA and mass transit across the country."