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More than 11,600 weekday riders. Two boroughs. Two newly accessible MTA stations. The Church Av station in Brooklyn and the Rockaway Boulevard station in Queens both opened this month with new and modernized elevator service, and LiftComm provided the emergency communication system inside each cab.
Not the cab. Not the machine room. Not the mechanical or electrical equipment. The two-way voice and text intercom that meets ASME A17.1-2019 Section 2.27.1.1.3 and lets a rider reach help the moment the doors close.
The LiftComm system specified at both stations is ASME A17.1-2019 compliant, with two-way voice and text, video acknowledgement, a 45-second auto-reroute when the first responder doesn't answer, and four-hour standby power. It is ADA compliant. Call traffic and audio stay on-premises inside MTA infrastructure, not in a third-party cloud.
On-premises is the whole point in a transit context. Cloud-hosted elevator phones route emergency traffic through outside vendor infrastructure, which is a non-starter for the kind of network security an agency like the MTA has to maintain. LiftComm devices connect into the agency's own PBX. The PoE-powered units in each cab provision when they're plugged in.
The Church Av station on the B and Q lines serves more than 6,000 weekday riders in Flatbush. A modernized elevator opened this month, providing access from the street to the Brooklyn-bound platform. The MTA delivered it on time and on budget as part of the broader Church Av accessibility work under ADA Package 3.
The full cab and shaft were replaced. Machine room electrical and mechanical were modernized. The fire alarm, CCTV, intercom, and remote monitoring systems all received upgrades. LiftComm provided the intercom.
The Rockaway Boulevard station on the A line in Ozone Park received a broader accessibility overhaul. Two new elevators were installed: a three-stop unit connecting the street to the mezzanine and the northbound platform, and a two-stop unit serving the southbound platform from the mezzanine. The station serves 5,600 weekday riders.
Beyond the elevators, the project added a new fare control area with three turnstiles and an AutoGate, three ADA-compliant staircases, platform edge tactile strips, ADA boarding areas, Braille signage throughout, and modifications to the station agent booth. The fire alarm and CCTV systems were upgraded. LiftComm provided the emergency communication system inside both new cabs.
Rockaway Boulevard is also the first MTA accessibility project delivered through a public-private partnership model. The design-build contractor finances the work with equity and bonds and is reimbursed only if the assets meet MTA maintenance standards for 25 years. The station is one of eight newly accessible stations included in ADA Package 3, which also funds elevator replacements at five additional stations.
The MTA completed 39 elevator replacements in 2025, more than double the previous record of 16 set in 2021. Elevator replacement projects are underway across the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan. The 2025-2029 Capital Plan funds at least 60 additional ADA-accessible stations and 45 more subway elevator replacements.
Every one of those elevators needs an emergency phone that meets current code. ASME A17.1-2019 is the floor. That is what LiftComm builds.
Church Av and Rockaway Boulevard are three more cabs in service. The work continues.
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