Baltimore pledges to spend $44 million on ADA-compliant ramps and sidewalks
The settlement, scheduled to be approved by the Board of Estimates next week, will partially resolve a 2021 lawsuit brought by three Baltimore residents with disabilities.
Above: No curb ramps and heavy vegetation are typical of the sidewalks in many city neighborhoods. This photo was taken at Bruce Street and Westwood Avenue in West Baltimore. (Fern Shen)
The Scott administration has agreed to allocate a minimum of $44 million over the next four years to upgrade sidewalks and install curb ramps to settle a lawsuit by three city residents who use wheelchairs.
The agreement, disclosed this afternoon as part of next week’s agenda for the Board of Estimates, will partially release Baltimore from a 2021 lawsuit calling on the courts to order the city to bring its public rights-of-way into compliance with the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) and other statutes.
Fixing city sidewalks and streets to comply with the ADA would cost $657 million in 2019 dollars, according to a study commissioned by the city Department of Transportation.
The study found that only 1.3% of 37,806 surveyed curb ramps in Baltimore complied with the ADA, which was enacted by Congress in 1990.
In addition, there were nearly 3,000 miles of non-compliant pedestrian walkways in 2019.
Under the agreement, which will go before the BOE for approval on November 20, the city will allocate at least $8 million in state Highway User Revenues to install and upgrade curb ramps and walkways to ADA standards in fiscal 2025, followed by a minimum of $12 million annually between 2026 and 2028.
Between now and next June 30, the city pledges to install or repair at least 533 curb ramps. Over the following three years, it says it will fix or install 2,226 ramps and, with additional state funding, up to 2,474 ramps.
That would still leave about 34,000 non-compliant ramps across the city, according to DOT data.
Between now and next June 30, the city pledges to install or repair at least 533 curb ramps.
The Scott administration further promises to establish a maintenance program to clear vegetation and clutter on sidewalks on an annual basis and appoint a coordinator to implement a sidewalk inspection program. (Since 2018, DOT has had an ADA coordinator and compliance chief, Valorie La Cour.)
Hard-won Victory
The settlement represents a triumph for Susan Goodlaxson, Keyonna Mayo and Janice Jackson, who brought the lawsuit as a class-action case on behalf of “persons with mobility disabilities who live in, work in or visit Baltimore” together with the Towson-based IMAGE Center for People with Disabilities.
• Fed up with Baltimore’s non-compliance with ADA, wheelchair users sue (6/25/21)
• Baltimore’s estimate of the cost of ADA compliance – a whopping $657 million (6/30/21)
The suit charged that the city improperly installed and maintained curb ramps and sidewalks, leading to streets and walkways that were “dilapidated, disintegrating and filled with objects such as telephone poles, trash and trees.” Such conditions, the plaintiffs said, infringed on the rights of disabled people and diminished their quality of life.
The lawsuit did not seek monetary damages beyond attorney’s fees, but rather asked the court to declare the city in violation of federal law and place it under court supervision until it fully complied with the ADA and related statutes.
Sandtown-Winchester resident Keyonna Mayo, Ms. Wheelchair Maryland 2017, is one of three plaintiffs in the ADA lawsuit the city plans to settle. BELOW: No curb ramp and a telephone pole blocking the sidewalk make this northeast Baltimore corner hazardous for all pedestrians. (John Hudson III, dralegal.org)
In an interview with The Brew, Mayo, a West Baltimore resident, said the sidewalks were so bad in her neighborhood that she often had to maneuver her wheelchair into the street and risk being hit by a car.
“That is really dangerous with some of the narrow streets we have,” she said, and especially so in a city with a high number of residents with ambulatory challenges.
Advocates say the lack of safe and accessible sidewalks reduces a wheelchair user’s access to jobs, groceries, educational opportunities and other essentials in direct violation of the ADA, a civil rights act that prohibits discrimination based on disability.
The lawsuit was handled by the California law firm of Goldstein, Borgen, Dardarian & Ho, along with the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center, Disability Rights Maryland and Disability Rights Advocates.