A new Department of Transportation program could provide a boost to SEPTA’s plans to make its stations accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), writes Stephanie Lai for The New York Times.

The program that launched earlier this week allows cities to apply for federal funding to improve the accessibility of its public transit stations for disabled riders. The program puts aside $1.75 billion to update stations that currently do not comply with the ADA.

According to Kelly Greene, SEPTA spokeswoman, renovating older stations in the Philadelphia area will cost about $4 billion. The transit authority has already created a schedule to start updating its stations to be ADA accessible. Some of the already scheduled projects could receive funding from this new program.

Jinny Kim, the director of the Disability Rights Program at Legal Aid, emphasized the importance of the new program. She said it would help prioritize accessibility, even when transit systems have had to deal with pandemic-related lower rider fares.

“People with disabilities can continue to ride transit because they do depend on it,” she said. “When public transit systems are inaccessible, they just can’t access society.”

Read more about SEPTA and the Department of Transportation’s program that allows cities to apply for federal funding to make public transit stations more accessible to disabled riders in The New York Times.