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July 26 will mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Yet even after all this time, some municipal governments still seem bent on ignoring their obligation under the ADA to make their jurisdictions accessible for blind people.
Here in Chicago, where I live, a federal judge issued a ruling on May 29 of this year ordering the city to install pedestrian crossing signals that are accessible to the blind at 71 percent or more of the city’s signalized intersections by the end of 2035.
Pedestrian crossing signals are those flashing signs that say “WALK” or “DON’T WALK” to let pedestrians know when it is safe to cross the street. But people who can’t see need signals that are audio or vibrotactile to tell them when it is safe to cross.
The ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division grew out of the lawsuit filed in 2019 by the American Council of the Blind and several of its members. The lawsuit noted that only eleven of Chicago’s 2,672 signalized traffic intersections—less than half of 1 percent—had devices that made them accessible for blind pedestrians. It also claimed that the city had for years installed new traffic signals or altered old ones without adding these access features.
The lawsuit argued that this was a violation of the ADA and of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. In 2023, a federal judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered the city to make reasonable progress on the installation of accessible crossing signals.
But in the six years since the lawsuit was filed, the number of intersections in Chicago with crossing signals accessible to blind pedestrians had only gone up to 3 percent.
Additionally, on May 29, a similar federal lawsuit was filed charging that the same laws were being violated in Washington, D.C., where “only a fraction” of the pedestrian crossing signals are accessible to the blind.
On June 4, Senator Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, introduced the Complete Streets Act, which would require states to direct a portion of their federal highway funding toward providing safe and accessible transportation options for children, seniors, and people with disabilities. This includes pedestrians. “Let’s build complete streets and complete communities and accelerate into a safer, more accessible future for all,” Markey said in a press release.
Similar legislation was first introduced in 2019 but has failed to become law. And even if it were to pass, we still must make sure that Complete Streets projects funded as a result include pedestrian crossing signals accessible to the blind. Then, we must make sure that those conducting these projects don’t try to ignore that aspect of the law.
And so all of these potential improvements are years away from happening. Let’s hope it doesn’t take another thirty-five years.