Action Gets Results?

The protest was a success! About 20 people came and passed out fliers, talked to passersby, and carried signs attached to our wheelchairs. We also did a small bullhorn march up the left side of Westland Avenue -- in the actual street, with me spouting my standard talking point that "Every time you see a wheelchair user in the road, it is a failure of public safety."

Besides wheelchair users and some allies from the Fenway Community Development Corporation and the neighborhood, we were joined by a couple of women with a stroller, and then a young woman pulling a wagon of babies.

And then, just as our little event was winding down, a big truck showed up with a load of heated asphalt. Then an inspector hired by the city, Peter Sterritt (not sure about the spelling), came over and talked to us good-naturedly. He really did not have an answer why the ramps were not temporarily patched after the road was "grinded" early last Friday morning -- 4 days ago. He said that the construction company was there to patch it today, as if that really should be enough for us. When I pressed him, he basically just shrugged in that way of "that's just the way it is, what can I tell you?"

Anyway, we all got giddy as a bunch of workers dumped some asphalt in front of us, a couple of guys smoothed it out, and then one of those paved rollers came over and fixed it.
Even better, Rich, the cameraman from Neighborhood Network News, showed up and took some film of the patchers, and interviewed me. Nothing like the media showing up to make us all feel like we had accomplished something, even though perhaps the most important part of this event was simply passing out flyers and educating everyday citizens. Because the quickest way that this is going to stop is when people walking over a curb ramp with a 3 inch rise immediately get out their cell phones and call the Mayor's Hotline, outraged.

We speculated about whether the patchers arrived in response to our demonstration, and maybe they did.

Photographs coming soon!