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Boston falling far behind in court settlement for installing new, safe handicap ramps at intersections, advocates charge in calling for a contempt ruling
By adamg on Sat, 08/10/2024 - 12:32pm
Boston has failed to install as many new handicap ramps at city intersections as it promised to settle a 2021 suit, and many of the ramps it has installed don't meet standards and could prove a menace to people using them, advocates say.
In a filing with the judge overseeing the case, brought by Boston residents and visitors who use wheelchairs, the advocates say the city has fallen 650 ramps behind its commitment under its 2021 consent decree in the case, that many of the ramps the city installed after agreeing to the deal are not actually usable by somebody in a wheelchair or are downright dangerous - and that a number are falling apart so quickly that two years after installation they become unsafe:
For example, numerous ramps force wheelchair users into the path of cars - often with momentum as they roll down the ramp ...
Wheelchair-using Bostonians continue to face many of the same – and some new – challenges and risks they faced before entry of the Consent Decree..
The filing says advocates were willing to cut the city a break at first, because of the effects of both the pandemic and an unusually rainy year in 2021, but that the city has since failed to step up the pace as required under the agreement, which calls for the installation and repair of 15,000 ramps over 10 years. In 2023, the filing charges, the city only installed or repaired 1,050 ramps, compared to the 1,500 required by the consent decree.
And many of those pose dangers to people in wheelchairs, the advocates charge. Of particular concern: The construction of "diagonal" ramps that don't funnel users right into a crosswalk - as shown in this illustration from the filing:
Advocates charge the city's specs for these ramps don't meet federal guidelines for them and so many of the ramps don't provide adequate clearance at the bottom to protect wheelchair users from speeding cars.
As a result, wheelchair users are at risk of being hit by cars when they navigate down diagonal curb ramps not located at crosswalks – perhaps the most dangerous type of curb ramp, as they lead directly into traffic without even the minimal protection a crosswalk might offer.
Lawyers for the advocates say they have tried repeatedly to get the city to change its installation specs, with no success, so "at this point, Court intervention is essential."
Also at issue: Ramps where Public Works installs one of those yellow pads on the sidewalk and then simply dumps out a load of asphalt at the curb, for example:
Citing Federal Highway Administration guidelines, the filing states:
These ramps are unsafe because "[u]sers are more exposed to cars in the roadway" and there is "[n]o clear boundary between the ramp and the street."
Even worse, many of these "built-up" ramps end in a vehicle travel lane.
The advocates ask the judge in the case to order Boston to install at least 7,500 new ramps by the end of 2025 and to inspect all of the ramps installed in 2021 for defects - and fix them - and to meet with the advocates and their attorneys to discuss whether ramps installed in 2022 and 2023 need a similar look.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
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Comments
Yep
Public Works and the Disability Commission fought Beacon Hill's push for granite rather than plastic and plastic quickly crumbled leaving dangerous holes at some of the city's busiest walkways (Boston Common entry opposite Walnut Street where you get the benefit of falling down steep stairs if you step in the hole in the plastic).
plastic seems to work in other locations
must be reacting to the Grey Poupon leeching from trash bags when it rains
Meanwhile across the city...
At a recent meeting of the MBTA's Riders Transportation Access Group (RTAG) complaints were made to the MBTA and to Judge King regarding the new center bus lanes being built out.
King is a retired judge charged with oversight of the organization which is made up of defendants of the Daniels-Finegold Settlement Agreement at the top of the list and other people who are seniors with limited mobility as well as those needing full ADA accommodations. The RTAG group meets 2X annually (virtually-Zoom) to review progress of the Daniels-Feingold case, and several other times per year (virtually-Zoom) to interact with MBTA management and their Systems Wide Access Department on various updates at the MBTA that will impact the audience, as well as to hear complaints, often about the MBTA's "The Ride."
It seems that when people were picked up curbside a bus could lower the ramp and people could board as best as possible. Now with center-lane bus rights-of-way with center-boarding platforms, those with mobility or sight issues now have to cross active bike lanes and traffic lanes to reach the boarding platform. There have already been a few negative encounters with both autos and bike riders. Adding to the frustration the boarding platforms at some stops are too narrow and when the ramp is deployed there is no room for a wheelchair to navigate to get onto the bus ramp.
The leadership of RTAG gave the MBTA a rather terse and direct earful at the last meeting with the judge and told the MBTA to go back and work out these problems with the city - and pronto.
This is new territory and has just been heard by the MBTA from the case defendants and I would not be surprised if this does not become a more formal complaint that could re-open the case. Some of this was not well-thought-out.
Film at 11.
Yes, a center-running bus
Yes, a center-running bus lane will require crossing the street to get to the boarding area. But even if some trips used to be possible without crossing a street with the prior location of these stops on the sidewalk, it's inevitable that someone riding the bus will eventually have to cross a street, if not on one trip then on the return trip. I don't see how this is the basis for a complaint.
The bus stops in the center are brand new, and therefore are going to meet level boarding standards 100%. The boarding area is not any narrower than the standard Boston sidewalk, including the sidewalk in this area before the bus lanes were built. See before: https://maps.app.goo.gl/vjwKS5ccpA2V6mZ28 and after: https://maps.app.goo.gl/RQREiA3fLd1Umd319
Speaking of ADA.
Speaking of ADA.
1. The chintzy new CCP Rolling Stock cars are a different height than the platforms on the order of two inches making a running start, tilt-back, or bridge necessary to wheel on.
2. On the Orange Line it is the handicapped/priority seating seats that are burdened with the protruding status monitors, which adversely affects slightly above average height ADA/priority riders. That’s whack.
3. These cars also have the unfortunate and hazardous feature: spring-loaded jump seats. I’ve seen older riders fall hard trying to push down the seat and turn around to sit only to be thrown to the floor when these jerky trains jerk to a start. Also, are passengers getting pinched and crushed when they get a body part stuck under a jump seat under the load of a fellow rider?
We are passengers, riders, never customers. This utility is the peoples’ capital.
Keep putting in the requests
Just want to also drop this here: Fill out the city form to request new ramps.
Most of the requests I submit get denied because "DOT owns that land" or "MBTA owns that land" or "DCR owns that land" despite the fact that they might be on crosswalks that are very high volume (for the exact reason that they are near parks, highways, and transit stations). But at least, I suppose, most of the requests I've sent in do in fact get a response. I've had one successful application, for a ramp outside a busy pharmacy, which you would expect might be high volume for people with low mobility. They say it will be fixed sometime in the next few years. I'll believe it when I see it.
The yellow plastic ramps are in fact a joke, I've seen so many cracked and busted ones that are nothing more now than collection bins for rocks and rubble and trash from the street. Making them even harder to cross than if it was just a smooth surface.
The yellow ADA tactile,
The yellow ADA tactile, truncated dome overlays suck ass. They last months especially when installed incorrectly. Low bids must meed minimum requirements and these demonstrably don’t. And, then there’s the ice.
P.s., There was something in the news a few years ago about one of the historic-end (North? South?) neighborhoods pushing back on ramps because they are anachronistic. Is any of this ramp push overcompensation and cover?
Will these requests be also
Will these requests be also construed as intimidation by our city chiefs?
Counterpoint:
Counterpoint: Most of this work is a huge waste of resources.
A bunch of “ramps” (many of them with hardly any slope) were redone near my house in Fields Corner this past spring. This is happening all over the city till at least 2030 and costing $tens of millions.
https://www.boston.gov/news/major-milestone-reached-making-bostons-stree....
I got into a rabbit hole about it when there was a lot of jack hammering in front of my house to demolish what seemed a perfectly good 40' long section of sidewalk and an adequate, low slope ramp. Once the work was completed, other than the yellow plastic pad being a little larger, I can't see any meaningful difference between the old and the new ramp.
Besides the cost, the work causes a great deal of disruption, pedestrian danger while the sidewalks are closed for a couple of weeks at the time, and a great deal of carbon emissions for those who care about these things (lots of carbon-intensive concrete and plenty of heavy machinery powered by diesel involved for each ramp redo).
I'd say one quarter of that work is justified, the rest is a giant waste. See link to pics below.
In recent years, I have been physically disabled for several weeks at the time on two occasions with serious mobility issue where I couldn’t move faster than 2 MPH even if my life depended on it -now fully recovered thankfully.
What I found super-scary was the inability to move out of the way of a speedy vehicle coming my way; that‘s where the real danger lies when crossing the street. This is order of magnitudes more dangerous than a slightly too steep ramp. Forcing motor vehicles to slow down and stop before an intersection should be the priority.
This obsession with ramp perfection looks more like a pretext for some $600/hour lawyers to collect big settlement money. One funny side story is that the city filed a claim against an Oakland law firm that specializes in that kind of racket for padding up its legal fees and won some money back.
https://gbdhlegal.com/wp-content/uploads/cases/ECF-68-Memo-and-Order-on-...
Below are the links from pics taken near my house in June 2024. The work involved two weeks of sidewalk closing for surveying, excavating, resetting the curb stones, grading, compacting and pouring new sections of concrete sidewalk. These ramps where never anywhere steep. I walk up and down that street all the time, and I have yet to see someone on a wheelchair to ask them if the new ramps make a significant difference to them.
The link below shows the last Google street view of that intersection with the "unsafe" ramps in 2018. https://maps.app.goo.gl/XkLWRRwB4PNYzDeL9
This is the same intersection during construction
https://photos.app.goo.gl/fTQ7BaCfZM8XMgZJA
This is the same intersection in June 2024 after two-weeks of construction.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/deKpJZpSX34aNiXJ7
Can someone explain to me how much safer the new ramp is than the old one? Was it worth two weeks of sidewalk closure, $tens of thousands and tons of carbon emissions?
And this is not an isolated case, there are thousands of of new-ish ramps getting redone all over the city in similar fashion.
I don't understand why the
I don't understand why the city is bogged down rebuilding thousands of ramps that already existed, when there are corners in very busy areas which still have no ramp at all! For example, Beach and Knapp in Chinatown: https://maps.app.goo.gl/G6jsrYtXrjuFRhTP9 .
I reported it to 311. The ticket is just sitting open with no acknowledgement.
Also the sidewalk is a horrible mess since they covered the historic granite slabs with asphalt at some point, and now the asphalt is falling apart.
Don't report to 311
report to the city's form: https://www.boston.gov/departments/disabilities-commission/ada-curb-ramp...
Doesn't mean they will action it quickly - and in all likelihood they will find an excuse to say why it's not their responsibility to fix. But it's the proper form.
I'm near Fields Corner
I've also got an intermittent mobility issue and for me the biggest issue is that nothing is done for parking enforcement, so almost every time I go out there's a car parked across the ramp and I have to go down to a driveway to cross the street, putting me between parked cars and not at a crosswalk. Reports to 311 for illegal parking are usually ignored, occasionally generate a terse "Noted."
Lousy consent decree
The city shouldn't have made that commitment in 2021. They basically bit off more than they can chew. The ADA standard is 'readily achievable'. In Boston, with it's old narrow sidewalks and crowded streets, that means compliance will take forever. Unfortunately the agreement was signed not long after the peak of the social justice movement, which meant people were calling for compliance at any cost, not really aware of what that price tag is.
Your last sentence is an
Your last sentence is an incisive observation. It would make for an interesting political science case study.
Sure
When it comes to things that should have been done 30 years ago, let's say "we can't afford it" as a conveeeeeeniennnnt way to deny people their rights.
Spoken like a reichwing weirdo.
As an aside, I am over the
As an aside, I am over the moon for Governor Walz and the new ticket. I know the best apology is not to commit the trespass, and I’m not taking issue with, or offering criticism of the epithet, “weirdo,” as it fits in specific cases. The newsfotainment industry is likely to arrange the letters on the marquee as: “WOKE VS. WEIRDO (Hear ye! Hear ye! Step right up and feast your eyes on this delicious spectacle of internecine pugilism!)
Where I do council pause is the generalized othering of both “woke” and “weird.” I believe the Harris-Walz campaign ought to be cognizant of the acute expiration date on weird and its derivatives. I realize the utility of “weird,” but we should be aiming for higher rhetoric and personal values. We offer fodder when we go low.
There are schools of political thought where power is the ultimate and only virtue, think fascists, but the US left must forever bind power and find power in the rights of man and universal virtues and morality. When the left strays too far into the coercive arts we doom ourselves to a bleak future.
We appreciate your exhuberant aside, let's get back to curb cuts
I would so rather we stay on topic and discuss Boston's commitment and $ to ADA spec curb cuts. Thanks for your excitement, lets keep it directed at making this a city more accessible for all. Thank you.
Why does a smart city
Cosplay as a stupid one?
Good intent but so much wrong
Ramos in my neighborhood have been built and rebuilt twice and I think some three times in about 25 years.
The yellow / red pads seem to break constantly. . They are either a poor design, or were incorrectly installed.
I think ramps make sense for a lot of reasons, but whatever regs dictate these bump pads are way out of hand.
And now replacing them or adding a ton more will be a massive cost and disruption.
This work should only be done as streets and curbs are updated over time. Not in a mass effort.
And whoever chose or installed the plastic pads owes us a mea culpa.
Ha ha, I thought that you
Ha ha, I thought that you were exaggerating when talking about the same ramp getting rebuilt 3 times in 25 years.
Then for fun and because I have nothing better to do, I took a closer look at the intersection closest to my house. It’s a residential street with nothing special; I just happen to have a front row seat to it. I don’t document everything that’s happening on my street but Google StreetView which goes back to 2007 for that area has kept track. Turns out some of the ramps were rebuilt 3 times in the past 15 years -no exaggeration.
Prior to 2007, there were already curb cuts; not great but not terrible either.
2007 Streetview: https://maps.app.goo.gl/sqbQwLdxbaerGjAKA
Redone circa 2009
2011 Streetview: https://maps.app.goo.gl/L88RSMwp91PdrTZ79
Redone circa 2019
2019 Streetview: https://maps.app.goo.gl/BYvJZPrSC8ZJtwer6
Redone in 2024
2024 Pic: https://photos.app.goo.gl/tes21D2ZVGNYJinU9
And each one of these isn't just a matter of replacing the plastic pad. It involves surveying, street permits, detail cops (sometimes), tearing up some 30 to 40’ linear feet of sidewalk, repositioning or replacing the granite curb pieces, forming, pouring and finishing new concrete in multiple stages etc.
Fourth time a charm?
How about they cool it with
How about they cool it with the speed bumps and install far more useful raised crossings, which can be traveled over at the posted speed.
what could have been
I bet they fixed all the ramps in Paris
That's Paris
We all know what would have happened in Boston if we hadn't dodged the Olympic Overrun bullet. Massive extraction of public monies into private bank accounts with major cutbacks in promised public amenities.
After all, there was a steel shortage in the early 2020s and a pandemic and those would have made grand excuses for you and Shirley and fish.
If I get pregnant
Maybe he'll marry me.
Diagonal ramps suck
A few years ago, I went to Vegas while I was temporarily in a wheelchair due to an injury. Vegas has all diagonal ramps on massive 6+ lane streets, and as soon as you come down the ramp, you're directly in the path of speeding traffic from one side or the other. Spend the money to replace them!
Doing it right
Doing it right would also involve making curb bump-outs where possible - which includes on every street with street parking. It enforces daylighting intersections (preventing parking too close, which limits visibility). It provides room for ramps parallel to the street/perpendicular to the cross, instead of diagonal into the intersection. And it shortens the crossing distance.
I can't believe the City of Boston is doing such a half-ass job
Said nobody ever.