City of Boston: You've Got Mail!

Posted by John B. Kelly
Left: Metal rim on Huntington Avenue with 3/4" change of level.

I just love getting correspondence from the Massachusetts Architectural Access Board. Today I received copies of two"First Notices," through which the AAB notified the city of Boston that it had received complaints from me alleging violations of the access code.

I took a quick walk over to the sites, both on Huntington Avenue. The first complaint I brought on behalf of Eileen Brewster, whose trouble with this 3/4" high steel blade sticking up out of the sidewalk dates back years. We filed this one three months ago, at the May 8 hearing on Huntington Avenue crossslopes. Compliance Officer Christopher Walker told me that he had reserved all Huntington Avenue complaints, pending his site visit of July 21.

Now that his visit established willful noncompliance, and the board fined the city $120,000 (and $500 more per day until compliance is achieved), the access board seems to be moving forward on the other complaints.

The city had told the board that this "NStar vault" would be repaired on July 6, 2006. But on my visit today, it looked just as dangerous as ever.

The second complaint I filed on behalf of James Magee, whose scooter crashed into the curb adjacent to the ramp facing across Massachusetts Avenue. Like many wheelchair and scooter users, James has some visual impairment, and did not notice that the crosswalk did not line up with the ramp. He paid for the city's negligence with a fall.

At the site visit on July 21, Compliance Officer Walker pointed out to the DPW official how the badly painted crosswalk was a violation. One might expect that such an easy correction could be done immediately, in order to eliminate the danger.

Notice the fire alarm box at the top of the ramp? When this ramp was installed in 2001, I knew nothing about access regulations, and was just happy to have a ramp so that people could cross the street safely. I tried personal appeals to disability commissioner Spinetto, to city engineer Para Jayasingh, and to city counselor Michael Ross. Nothing happened, maybe because the removal of one unnecessary fire alarm box might turn into a call for the removal of all of them -- but that's another story.

Anyway, it turns out that regulations require every new curb ramp to have a 48 inch landing area at its top. A fire alarm box kind of gets in the way of this landing area.