NAG letter to Mayor Thomas M. Menino

Posted by John B. Kelly

This is the letter recently sent to Mayor Thomas Menino, urgently requesting a meeting with him so that he can hear how his sidewalk policies are affecting people with disabilities.

Dear Mayor Menino:

Please meet with us. Local residents with disabilities have been trying for three years to get city officials to take our concerns seriously -- but our neighborhood only gets more inaccessible. First, uneven and bumpy bricks were laid along Huntington Avenue for the sake of gentrification, forcing wheelchair users off the sidewalks. Last year, functional crosswalks were replaced with expensive, decorative Duratherm™, which shakes us like rumble strips under a car. And now the Transportation Department plans to install Duratherm™ crosswalks all around Symphony Hall, right next to the twin Symphony Plaza housing complexes for elderly and disabled people.

We turn to you because meetings, City Council hearings, and protests have done no good. The Department of Public Works has contemptuously disregarded our complaint before the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board (AAB) for almost 2 years now. It has ignored hearings, failed to comply with orders, and even went to court to argue that it was not responsible for the sidewalk! DPW has behaved so egregiously that the AAB is holding a "fine hearing" on May 8 to determine whether to levy a fine.

We need to tell you, personally, our nightmare stories. James McGee lives right on Huntington Avenue, but the bumpy bricks make him ride his scooter in the street. Eileen Brewster relocated to the area because of its access, now taken away by the bricks. Billie Tyler, Galeen Jones, and other women who use wheelchairs have to stay off the bricks or risk incontinence. Pam Beeler finds the Duratherm crosswalks almost as bad as the bricks. People with visual impairments or balance concerns are at greater risk for falling.

Please, listen to the petition we gave you last year requesting the installation of a smooth path of travel along Huntington. And please honor the pledge you made last August at the Symphony Streetscape Project announcement. You interrupted your speech to address disabled people: "We understand your issues about bricks and sidewalks, so we're gonna work with you. Don't worry about it." Then you wrote in your weekly column (August 15, 2005) that "Handicap accessibility is a major priority for this project."

We ask you to order the Transportation Department to respect the interests of local residents, and reject the use of Duratherm. Tell them to replace the bricks on Huntington Avenue, not just adjacent to Symphony Hall and Symphony Plaza West, but all the way to Gainsborough St. This would represent a good-faith beginning to undoing the oppressive gentrification of the last three years.

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

John B. Kelly