ADA – KMZ Digest

Should not take a lawsuit

itsme — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 20:59:11 +0000

Reluctant Localities Are Being Dragged Into Court to Fix Sidewalks for People With Disabilities

By Maureen O’Hagan

From her Baltimore dining room, Susan Goodlaxson can see her neighbor gardening across the street. But while other neighbors stop to chat, Goodlaxson just watches from the window. She uses a wheelchair, and there isn’t a single curb ramp on her block.

If the 66-year-old wanted to join, she’d have to jump her wheelchair down the 7½-inch curb and risk a fall. Ditto if she wanted to wheel over to the library, a trip that would require riding in the street to avoid rampless curbs and broken sidewalks.

“I don’t feel like it’s asking too much to be able to move your wheelchair around the city,” she said.

Federal law backs her up. Since 1990, the Americans With Disabilities Act has required governmental entities to provide people with disabilities access to programs and services enjoyed by their nondisabled peers. That includes sidewalks and curb ramps that make it possible to safely cross the street.

In Baltimore and many other communities across the U.S., there has been widespread noncompliance with this part of the law.

“An awful lot of [communities] have either disregarded their obligations under the ADA or made it the last priority,” noted Tom Stenson, a lawyer with Disability Rights Oregon, a nonprofit advocacy group. “There’s a culture throughout America of not taking the needs of people with disabilities seriously.”

In Baltimore, just 1.3% of curb ramps meet federal standards, according to the city’s own figures. In Oregon, about 9% of corners maintained by the state transportation department are compliant. San Jose, California, counted 27,621 corners with faulty or nonexistent curb ramps. Boston estimates fewer than half of its curb ramps are compliant.

In recent years, there’s been a flurry of class-action lawsuits, including one filed against Baltimore in June, with Goodlaxson among the plaintiffs.

^{Cities from Baltimore to Seattle have been sued for failing to make sidewalks accessible to people with disabilities and those who use wheelchairs. There has been widespread noncompliance with that part of the Americans With Disabilities Act. (Rosem Morton/for KHN)}

Philadelphia was sued in 2019 over the condition of its sidewalks. Chicago was sued the same year for failure to install audible pedestrian signals, more than a decade after settling a suit over curb ramps. In 2018, Atlanta was sued. A survey there determined that only 20% of sidewalks were in sufficient condition to be used by people in wheelchairs or motorized scooters and about 30% had curb ramps. Seattle settled a class-action suit in 2017. San Francisco and Long Beach, California, were sued in 2014 to make their sidewalks more accessible to wheelchairs.

_{In Baltimore, just 1.3% of curb ramps meet the federal standards, according to the city’s own figures. On Susan Goodlaxson’s block, there isn’t a single curb ramp.}
_{(Rosem Morton/for KHN)}

The city of New York and its transit authority have faced repeated major ADA lawsuits, some alleging the same lack of access for people with disabilities that was supposed to be addressed in a lawsuit that was filed in the 1990s and later settled.

Los Angeles settled what is believed to be the largest of these suits in 2015. Its problems with sidewalks and curb ramps were so widespread that the city estimated it would cost $1.4 billion and take 30 years to get into compliance. In the years leading up to the suit, the city wasn’t allocating money for sidewalk repairs, for the ADA or otherwise, even while paying out millions in injury claims.

In all, hundreds of jurisdictions have faced lawsuits or entered settlement agreements after failing to meet ADA requirements for pedestrians and mass transit users.

There’s a culture throughout America of not taking the needs of people with disabilities seriously.

–Tom Stenson, a lawyer with Disability Rights Oregon

The sheer number of noncompliant sidewalks, curb ramps, pedestrian signals and subway stations illustrates the challenges for people with disabilities. It also leaves cities in a legal and financial squeeze, with the average curb ramp costing between $9,000 and$19,000. When the court requires a jurisdiction to build thousands of them to catch up, it can strain budgets.

The ADA and the 1973 Rehabilitation Act resulted in significant changes that improved access and accommodations for people with disabilities. The ADA is clear that people with disabilities have the same right to pedestrian infrastructure as anyone else.

There are requirements covering a curb ramp’s width, slope and other specifications. Even a 1-inch lip can be too high for a wheelchair user to navigate. A slope that is a few degrees too steep can tip someone to the ground. Sidewalks that are crumbling, pothole-filled or otherwise obstructed — with utility poles, for example — force wheelchair users into the street for a dangerous ride.

No one expected the ADA to fix all these problems immediately. Under the law, new sidewalks must be built for accessibility. As for existing sidewalks, a federal appeals court in 1993 ruled that curb ramps must be installed or regraded when the road is altered — say, when it’s repaved.

Yet by 1999 it was clear many jurisdictions were ignoring the law. The U.S. Department of Justice began enforcement efforts, entering into settlement agreements with more than 200 noncompliant jurisdictions representing every state since 2000.

Still, compliance still lags

Officials in Baltimore, New York and Los Angeles declined to comment for this article. Tony Snyder, manager of the Oregon Department of Transportation’s ADA program, said siloed funding sources, strict regulations and costs have been among the hurdles over the years.

“It wasn’t that ODOT doesn’t value accessibility,” he said. While fewer than 10% of the state’s ramps meet standards, he said, a lot of noncompliant ramps are nonetheless “usable.”

Kelly Lynch, deputy director and general counsel for the Montana League of Cities and Towns, an association that represents 127 municipal governments, agreed that costs can add up. She’s been working to help fellow Montanans —and, she hopes, officials in other jurisdictions across the country through the National League of Cities — find a path toward full accessibility, even if the steps are incremental.

Some changes, including educating road crews on the rules, are relatively simple. But a bigger problem is a widespread lack of spending on the nation’s infrastructure. “Our streets are falling apart, and so are our sidewalks,” Lynch said.

_{Susan Goodlaxson of Baltimore says she repeatedly called the city asking for curb cuts and sidewalk repairs. She remembers a crew coming to look at the sidewalks, but nothing happened.
(Rosem Morton/for KHN)}

In August, the Senate defeated an amendment by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) to a $1 trillion infrastructure bill that would have required state and local entities to describe how they would use federal dollars to improve accessibility for people with disabilities and for underserved communities. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) called Duckworth’s amendment “politically correct virtue signaling” and argued that transit agencies don’t need that kind of federal oversight.

On top of the broader infrastructure issues, many officials don’t fully understand the ADA or its requirements, Lynch believes. And as the mother of a disabled son, she also said there’s another big factor at play: “People still discriminate against people with disabilities.”

As for Baltimore, Goodlaxson said she repeatedly called the city asking for curb cuts and sidewalk repairs. She remembers a crew coming to look at the sidewalks — and then nothing happening. Advocacy organizations tried to negotiate with city officials, hoping to get Baltimore’s infrastructure brought into compliance on a timetable. When that didn’t work, they filed suit.

Most of these kinds of ADA cases begin similarly, with negotiations long before lawsuits. Some jurisdictions settled quickly and worked hard at improvements. Other cases go less smoothly. Oregon’s transportation department, which was also sued, is in danger of missing its construction deadlines under the settlement. Some repairs had to be redone because they still fell short of ADA requirements.

Sometimes cities try to get cases thrown out of court by pointing to the 1993 appeals court decision and arguing there’s no evidence the road has been altered since then, so ADA requirements haven’t kicked in. In New York, the transit authority argues in an ongoing lawsuit that while wheelchair users can’t ride, say, three-quarters of the city’s subways because there are no elevators, they can instead take the bus.

Some jurisdictions fight bitterly. Los Angeles spent five years in court before agreeing to settle. Linda Dardarian, one of the plaintiff’s attorneys, said cities don’t fully recognize sidewalk and curb ramp accessibility as a civil right. “They have viewed it as just another maintenance obligation, [like] grooming street trees.”

When the case was settled, the judge ordered Los Angeles to pay nearly $12 million to cover the other side’s legal fees and costs, on top of the estimated $1.4 billion it will cost to come into compliance.

Under these settlements, repairs often stretch a decade or more, and the city or town typically must pay for surveys, measurements and disability consultants to ensure compliance.

From the plaintiffs’ point of view, the challenge of these lawsuits is that there isn’t a huge hammer to hold governments accountable.

“If you don’t build the ramps, the penalty is you have to build the ramps,” said Stenson of Disability Rights Oregon, which provided legal representation to a plaintiff in the Oregon transportation department suit.

For those who can easily get around town, the issue can be invisible.

_{A trip to the library for Baltimore’s Susan Goodlaxson, who uses an electric wheelchair, would require riding in the street to avoid rampless curbs and broken sidewalks. “I don’t feel like it’s asking too much to be able to move your wheelchair around the city,” Goodlaxson says.(Rosem Morton/for KHN)}

Goodlaxson didn’t see the problem until she began using a wheelchair five years ago, after surgery for a brain tumor. She remembers seeing people riding their wheelchairs in the street, thinking, “that doesn’t look safe. But I didn’t give it any more thought.”

Now, she realizes “people are terrified, but they can’t do it any other way.”

Sen. Duckworth took her daughters to see ‘Barbie.’ Because she uses a wheelchair, she had to wait outside.

wordpress — Mon, 28 Aug 2023 20:30:12 +0000

Published July 31, 2023

Thirty-three years after the Americans with Disabilities Act legally required access, much of American life is still inaccessible. This is true even for a U.S. Senator. (BILL CLARK/CQ ROLL CALL/AP)

Over the “Barbie” movie’s opening weekend, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, like many Americans, went to see it with her young daughters and a few friends from their play group. “Barbie” has been the No. 1 movie in America since it opened on July 21. Many viewers have put on their pinkest outfits for showings, and Duckworth’s family was no exception.

^{Sara Luterman
Caregiving reporter}

“We got all dressed up in pink, and my girls put on their sparkly shoes,” Duckworth told The 19th.

But there was a problem: When they arrived, Duckworth could not enter the theater. She uses a wheelchair, and the single elevator was broken. She ended up sitting outside while her daughters went up to the movie without her.

“They didn’t have [information about the broken elevator] posted anywhere. If I had known, I wouldn’t have come all that way and disappointed my girls,” Duckworth said. Her ticket was refunded and she was given a pass to come back when the elevator is repaired, but it is unclear when that will be. The 19th called the theater multiple times to ask, but did not receive a response.

Claudia Center is legal director for the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund, also known as DREDF. The organization was founded in 1979 by disabled people to fight for their civil rights. According to Center, Duckworth’s experience is not unique.

Violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Center told The 19th, “are exceedingly common. They permeate our environment in all areas of life.”

The problem, according to Center, is enforcement. People can make complaints with various federal agencies online, but enforcement is underfunded, and the sheer volume of complaints means that a response may be slow.

The federal government’s ADA website says that reviewing a complaint can take up to three months, but Center said individuals do not always receive a response in that timeframe, if they receive one at all.

“There are thousands upon thousands of complaints. There is no way for the Department of Justice, at its current level of staffing, to respond to them all,” Center said.

Because of these barriers, some people choose to pursue private action to enforce accessibility, by hiring their own lawyer. But that option is cost-prohibitive and time-consuming.

“You have to find a lawyer — one who will work on some kind of contingency, because most people with disabilities don’t have the money to pay out of pocket. There’s a filing fee to even file a complaint. Everything is very expensive,” she said. There are also no damages that can be awarded, so there is no promised payout for a lawyer later, as there may be in a personal injury case.

Less than 1 percent of housing in America is wheelchair accessible, according to the most recent data available, and many stores, restaurants, movie theaters and other sites of public accommodation are not accessible to people in wheelchairs or with other disabilities.

Some older buildings can be “grandfathered in” and do not need to meet ADA requirements until new construction or renovation occurs. Center calls this “the great compromise” of the law.

“If you build it new, or you redo it, the new construction or the new alteration is supposed to be accessible. The idea is, over time, we’ll have a more accessible society,” Center said. But even that compromise is frequently not met, and much new construction remains inaccessible.

Additionally, businesses that meet some technical requirements may be inaccessible in a practical sense. A movie theater may have wheelchair seating available, but the elevator may be broken, as was the case for Duckworth and her family. There may be a ramp into a restaurant, but the bathroom may be down a flight of stairs.

Unfortunately, there are no legislative or regulatory fixes on the horizon. Congress continues to introduce bills that would further weaken ADA enforcement, which makes it difficult to introduce potentially successful legislation to strengthen protections. Duckworth highlighted the ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017, which ultimately failed, but received bipartisan support.

“The problem is, we’re always playing defense. We spend more time defending the ADA than we do expanding access,” Duckworth said. “There’s not much we can do about this other than highlight this for folks. I would love to be able to pass additional support for the ADA. In 33 years, you shouldn’t be hanging your hat on the building being grandfathered in when you could have put in a fix in that amount of time.”

For Advocate of Voters With Disabilities, Polls Present Obstacles

itsme — Wed, 20 Jul 2022 20:39:10 +0000

Arlene Schulman | Tuesday, November 3,2020

Edith Prentiss wheeled across the ramp into her polling site in Washington Heights on Election Day and sighed.

She pointed to the incline between the ramp and doorway of the Moriah Senior Center in Washington Heights.

“This ramp,” the longtime advocate said, “is state of the art but there’s not sufficient coverage.”

A voter stumbled over the ramp as he entered.

Prentiss called poll workers over to inspect what might seem like a minor inconvenience but can hinder or prevent people with disabilities from entering polling sites.

The Americans with Disabilities Act 2016 checklist for accessible polling places includes accommodations for parking and stresses the importance of ramps, smooth surfaces, wide entryways, easy-to-open doors and available lifts and elevators.

Once voters with disabilities make it inside, the voting technology is required to include a Ballot Marking Device that can be utilized by touch screen, a braille keypad, a rocker paddle that allows a voter to press yes or no with hands or feet, or a sip and puff device that uses air pressure for those who have limited or no motor ability. The whole process takes two machines. A vote is marked on the ballot by one machine and then the completed ballot must be scanned by another to record the vote.

Prentiss, 68, who has used a wheelchair for 25 years, and other New Yorkers represent 38.3 million people in the U.S. with disabilities who are eligible to vote, representing 16.3% of the population, according to a Sept. 24 Rutgers University study. According the U.S. Census Bureau, 930,100 people with disabilities were living in New York City in 2017, which represents 11 percent of the total local population.

Prentiss, former president and current transportation chair of the 504 Democratic Club and former president of Disabled in Action of Metropolitan New York City, predicts that many people with disabilities and seniors are voting with absentee ballots or voted early.

Prentiss has voted at the Moriah Senior Center for the last 40 years. There was no line when she arrived there at 7 am, unlike early voting lines that were filled with voters with canes, walkers and wheelchairs at the Bronx County Courthouse.

Prentiss attempted to use the Ballot Marking Device but the battery appeared to be dead.

“This is what we’re doing,” she instructed poll workers. “We are going to call the technician, and then I will come back later.”

“This,” she added, “is why I arrive early.”

She passed her telephone number to a poll worker, a neighbor who lives in her apartment building two blocks away, and told him to call her when it was fixed.

“I’ll be returning at 4 pm,” she warned.

Prentiss declined to vote early citing long lines at uptown polling sites that circled the block and a compromised immune system. Sheila Mack, a 57-year-old retiree who uses a cane, voted early at Lincoln Center because of a bad hip. She showed a poll worker her New York Access-A-Ride card, which allows her to use New York’s paratransit systems for people with disabilities, and she was ushered to the front of the line.

Ana Heywood, 71, a retired teacher and breast cancer survivor who is Puerto Rican, also moved to the front of the line when voting early in the Bronx.

“How good it feels to have a voice,” she said. “Our ancestors got beat up, got bitten by dogs, and terrorized the right to vote.”

After 40 minutes, a poll worker found Prentiss outside determining how the ramp should be re-installed. A few minutes later, the ramp was adjusted with no gap between the ramp and entranceway.

The Ballot Market Device, as it turned out, only required a restart by turning the machine on and off.

Prentiss wheeled back in to vote. But one of two scanners was down for the count, a technician on the way.

“This current president,” she said, “has been doing his best to deconstruct law, policies and programs that are very important to all of us, except the billionaires. This has impacted people with disabilities and seniors.”

She voted for Joe Biden.

With additional reporting from Tricia Crimmins, Grace Benninghoff, Anna Grazulis and Andrew Little.

This story is the work of students at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Other news organizations are welcome to publish this story as long as they adhere to these guidelines.