Heather Watkins Campaigns for Accessible Roslindale

Posted by John B. Kelly

Heather Watkins lives in Roslindale and would like to be able to get in the front door of local businesses. Her story is written up here in the Roslindale Transcript:

She recently wrote about her efforts:

Accessibility is such an important issue which has spurned my sense of agency so I am indeed passionate about it. I am eager to learn, share ideas and see this project through.

I did meet with Commissioner [for Persons with Disabilities Stephen] Spinetto on Wed 10/25. He was very receptive and we took a tour of Roslindale Square and made notes of businesses with compromised access. He stated that he would do some surveying and work with business owners to remedy the problem.

We left on a positive note and agreed to stay in touch regarding the progress of the project.

I have not met with any business owners as yet. I am waiting to hear back from Lisa Modecker, the Roslindale Board of Trade President to schedule a meeting. She also seemed receptive and open to ideas.

We look forward to chronicling the responsiveness of the city and local business group.

Photo Contest regarding Boston's "Unique Character"

Avenue of the Arts: historic brick sidewalks since 2004. Photo: Rob DuBuske

Posted by John B. Kelly

In today's CityLine Newsletter from the city of Boston:

CityofBoston.gov Photo Contest

Calling all photographers! The City of Boston is looking for great photos of Boston to feature on our website. We're looking for photos that show our city's unique character and beauty. Whether you're a professional photographer, or just like to take pictures, we invite you to submit photos. www.cityofboston.gov/photocontest

Boston is a great city -- unless you depend on smooth walkways to get around. Did you know that there is no accessible path of travel to the Statehouse? Just try to get up there by that brick sidewalk along Beacon Street. Park Street's one sidewalk is blocked by an alley with no curb cuts. Getting to City Hall is just as difficult.

How inaccessible is Boston? Boston is so inaccessible that even the hospitals torture their own patients with bricks.

Inaccessibility is part of Boston's "unique character." Let's document it.

The deadline is December 6, and they're looking for color digital images only. Judges will be looking for "panoramic photos for our global navigation segments which include: Home, Resident, Business, Student and Visitor section as well as square photos to be used throughout the site."

And these are the "themes":

* Cityscapes
* Tourist Attractions
* Students / College Campuses
* Day and Night
* Boston Landmarks
* Neighborhoods
* Parks
* Seasonal
* Scenic

Individuals can submit up to five pictures.

Symphony Hall Open House Sunday

Posted by John B. Kelly

Left: tripping hazard in front of Symphony Hall. Photo: Jesse Colbert

Please come join us at another of Neighborhood Access Group's "Access Education Days" at Symphony Hall, Sunday, October 22 at 12 o'clock noon. We will be there until 2 p.m. or so passing out flyers to the many people who will be visiting Symphony Hall during its "Open House," which runs from 12-5 p.m.

We support people coming to the event -- please come here some good music.

What we want to do is educate visitors that Symphony Hall is a bad neighbor to the hundreds of elderly and disabled people living right next door in the huge Symphony Plaza complexes. Symphony makes us "pay" every time we try to pass by, as sidewalks on the three sides of the building are horrible: one of the most tilted sidewalks in Boston, a dangerous and a missing ramp, and lots of tripping hazards. And it's been this way for years and years.

Unfortunately, Symphony Hall has focused its energy, not on improving access to its sidewalks, but making sidewalks throughout the area fit its ideas of aesthetic beauty. It is an integral member of the Fenway Alliance, which drove the project that installed bricks up and down Huntington Avenue, over the neighborhood's fierce objections. Symphony has also teamed up with City Hall to plan for the installation of fancy but often very bumpy decorative crosswalks in the area next year, as part of the Symphony Area Streetscape Project.

Deval Patrick and Ted Kennedy: town meeting on disability issues

Posted by John B. Kelly

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick and Senator Ted Kennedy will be meeting with the disability community on October 24 at 12 o'clock noon, at the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown. (The meeting was originally scheduled for 10:00 a.m., but the change to 12 p.m.will be good news for the number of disabled people -- like me -- whose morning routine takes hours.)

This will be a great opportunity to ask what Patrick plans to do to help improve our lives.

Patrick has posted a position paper on disability issues, which says quite a few good things about promoting community living over nursing homes and expanding access to the PCA program and health insurance, but doesn't have much to say about street level access. Patrick says he will:

Enforce the ADA. Building on my experience as head of Civil Rights in the Clinton Administration, I will make compliance in state government with the Americans with Disabilities Act one of my highest priorities. We will have accessible public facilities and services, well-trained and prepared staff, and active outreach to and partnership with the disability community. I will also seek the service of persons with disabilities in my administration. As Governor I will not tolerate discrimination.

Getting state government to comply with the ADA is a good first step, but what we need 1st is access to our own neighborhoods. What slaps us across the face every time we leave our front doors is the breathtaking dangerousness of our local sidewalks and streets.

They are so dangerous because our cities and towns are indifferent or actively hostile to our civil rights to access.

I want to ask Deval Patrick whether he will commit to vigorous enforcement of the special part of the state building code that guarantees access in all new construction: 521 CMR. That would include the following:

• Directing Mass. Highway to make sure that all its projects improve rather than decrease access. This would mean more than "access guidelines" which cities and towns are free to ignore (for example, the guideline against having curb cuts made of brick)
• Directing the Department of Conservation and Recreation to make access along its roadways and reservations as high a priority as it has in some of its state parks. The DCR's record regarding its sidewalks and roads is terrible, and must be improved.
• Informing towns and cities that your administration will not tolerate discrimination against people with disabilities in any new construction, whether performed by cities themselves or the private developers they award permits to. And this would mean confronting cities like Boston, whose new construction has ignored access for years.
• Increasing funding for the state Architectural Access Board so that it can address the thousands of violations committed yearly in a timely fashion.

These are just my first thoughts, and I welcome comments.

And if you send me your questions for Deval Patrick or Ted Kennedy, I will print them here first!

Columbus Day wrap up

Posted by John B. Kelly

More than 15 people showed up for our action on Huntington Avenue yesterday. Activists from Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge came, along with some great allies from the Fenway. We handed out hundreds of flyers, showed off our storyboards, and also our new “thermometer” (kudos to Alyson Perry for the idea) tracing the city of Boston's rising temperature (= amount of fine it now now owes to the state of Massachusetts for its scofflaw activity on Huntington Avenue), which will crack $200,000 early in the new year.

I will upload pictures of the protest itself a little later, but for starters here is a section of Huntington Avenue -- oh, I'm sorry , the "Avenue of the Arts" -- that the Fenway Alliance is so proud of. This location is between the YMCA and the principal part of the Northeastern campus, on the block between Gainsborough and Forsyth streets. Quite a few other craters have appeared, although none quite this dramatic.

We will be filing complaints on these bricks this week.

Press Release for Columbus Day Protest

Posted by John B. Kelly

"Fenway Alliance Puts Aesthetics before Public Safety"

LOCAL RESIDENTS DEMAND ACCESSIBLE HUNTINGTON AVE, COLUMBUS DAY, 12-3 PM, SYMPHONY T STATION

Neighborhood Access Group (NAG) will lead Fenway and Symphony-area residents in a protest against the dangerous all-brick sidewalks along Huntington Avenue during the Fenway Alliance's "Opening Our Doors!" celebration this Columbus Day. From 12-3 p.m., people with disabilities and access supporters will gather at the corner of Huntington and Massachusetts avenues (in front of Utrecht Art Supplies) to educate visitors about the gentrification which now excludes people from their own neighborhood.

"I am tired of being pole vaulted to the pavement when my cane gets caught in the broken and uneven brick sidewalks of Boston," said NAG member Alyson Perry, who is blind.

The Fenway Alliance, the consortium of 22 local cultural and academic institutions, advocated for and partially funded the installation of the brick sidewalks in 2003 in what it called a fight against "blight." NAG has fought for the return of concrete sidewalks ever since, with protests, meetings with city officials, City Council hearings, and petitions and letters to Mayor Thomas M. Menino. But even the levy of a $500 per day fine by the State Architectural Access Board (AAB) for "willful noncompliance" has failed to move the city to make the sidewalk accessible.

NAG will push its message on Columbus Day with:

· A giant "thermometer" showing the $150,000 + the city of Boston has been fined so far.

· Personal "storyboards" describing the dangers of all-brick sidewalks.

· "Scavenger Hunt" for children, informational flyers and a map for adults.

· Wheelchair rides. Pain relievers will be available!

· Sidewalk markings to indicate access violations.

The bricks, labeled "treacherous" by Globe music critic Richard Dyer and "cruel" by City Councilor Michael Ross, are an admitted problem. Consulting engineer Dave Mariano testified before the AAB that the sidewalk was noncompliant "because the bricks are so irregular. They're 'City Hall Pavers.' It's a baked brick, it's not a wire-cut brick and the surfaces are irregular." Even Disabilities Commissioner Spinetto said "the difficulty is with a unit paver system."

"Let's have a democratic discussion about these sidewalks," said NAG chair John Kelly. "Let the public decide which is more important: the safety of pedestrians or the aesthetic preferences of some bad neighbor institutions and their City Hall friends."