Ahead of the MTA Board meeting on Sept. 26, petitioners pushing for the installation of an elevator at the Mosholu Parkway No. 4 station stood outside the station just over a week before the meeting to collect signatures. The plan is to present the signatures at the meeting in downtown Manhattan.

Jason Caraballo, a manager at Montefiore Health System’s Office of Community & Government Relations, broached the subject with straphangers during the evening rush. Caraballo teamed up with Frederic Klein, an employee at Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz’s office, and Kenny Agusto from Sen. Jamaal Bailey’s office.

The petition gathering is part of an initiative to convince the MTA for an elevator. The agency received a $200 million cash infusion for elevator installations in its 2015-2019 capital budget. The agency hasn’t decided which stations will be prioritized for an elevator. The move to bring in more elevators falls under the Fast Forward Plan launched by MTA president Andy Byford. The hope is to make the stations wheelchair-accessible.

Getting up to the platforms of the station is quite the hike, given the long two flights of stairs.

Mosholu Parkway serves as a nexus for travelers visiting North Central Bronx Hospital, Montefiore Health System, DeWitt Clinton High School and Mosholu Montefiore Community Center. Tracey Towers is within walking distance of the station. The commercial corridor known as the Jerome Gun Hill Business Improvement District borders the station.

Petitioning has previously helped sway the MTA to prioritize certain stations over others. It worked for the East 149th Street/Gran Concourse No. 2, 4, and 4 lines. Other stations that received an elevator under the current capital plan include the Bedford Park Boulevard station at the B/D line and the Gun Hill Road No. 2 station.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.