Stymied Again

Posted by John B. Kelly

Federal and state laws should right now be ensuring comfortable access everywhere. Unfortunately, years after the laws' effective dates, wheelchair and scooter users still routinely take our chances in the street rather than drive over an unknown sidewalk.

I paid the price on Tuesday evening, when I rode my wheelchair from the Fenway, through Kenmore square, and out Commonwealth Avenue to 949 Commonwealth Ave, a few blocks past the BU bridge. I thought that the sidewalk along the left side of Comm Ave. would be less torturous than the right, which I had seen from my van to be full of bricks.

For a while, I thought I had done well, until, that is, I tried to stay on the sidewalk over the bridge over the Turnpike. First, I gritted my teeth and went up a sizable level change (2.5-3 inches), because I did not want to go out into the street, and cross the bridge in the face of oncoming traffic. Once over the hump, I rode and rode, until I got to a high cliff dead end without curb cuts. So I had to turn around, plunge back down that awful level change, and put myself out in mortal danger on the bridge in the dark without lights.


From Google maps. Red arrow points to curb without ramp, just across from the BU bridge.

I still have my naïve moments, and had one then as I wondered how Boston University could allow itself to be so completely inaccessible, and then had another wondering how the city of Boston could allow yet another of its main arteries to lack the most basic access. Major arteries that have forced me out into the street include Boylston, Beacon, and now Commonwealth.