Snow clearance: my view (and queries) from my wheelchair
By Amy Hunt/South End resident
I’m a wheelchair-using paraplegic. Over the next few months, you may spot me on the streets, in traffic, traveling alongside cars, cabs, buses, trucks and Ubers. It’s risky, but it’s where the City of Boston puts me after it snows.
After a storm, the plows push mounds of snow onto street corners, covering curb ramps—the slopes at the end of sidewalks that make it possible for wheelchair users to cross the street. Without curb ramps, I’m going nowhere. So I make my way into traffic.
And I have questions.
The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) mandates curb ramps. But does the ADA have an opinion about ramps getting covered by four feet of snow?
The City expects residents who live closest to street corners to clear the snow piles it creates when contractors plow the street. According to Boston.gov, corner residents have three hours after a storm ends to get it done. That doesn’t consider the possibility of a 72-year-old Aunt Mae living in the corner property.
Snow piles can grow to four, five, even six feet tall and wide. Even if Aunt Mae can afford to pay someone to clear snow all winter, can the piles really be moved by a human with a shovel? Moved to where exactly?
These types of questions knock around my head while I travel in traffic. And another: If I get flattened out here, whom do my survivors take it up with? The Aunt Mae rule would appear to indemnify the City. But it’s never been tested.
Of course, some wheelchair users simply stay home, under house arrest, until the snow and sludge melts. They shouldn’t have to, and I can’t. I have a job and a 7-year-old.
I remember some years ago when Boston started installing curb ramps. There were intense neighborhood discussions around the ugly yellow plastic pads, a negotiated brownish-orange agreement, and a lawsuit by the Beacon Hill Neighborhood Association, until they settled on brick-red cast iron pads that didn’t alter the historic district’s sidewalks.
I think it’s time to talk again. Maybe Boston needs a few pieces of specialized snow removal equipment. Maybe it needs to keep the first and last parking spots on every street available for snow mounds. Maybe it needs to better communicate with residents better about their responsibilities.
ADA-mandated curb ramps covered under piles of snow and wheelchairs traveling in traffic are not inevitable natural events. They’re about policy.
WalkBoston followed Amy around 5 days after a storm. In just 3 blocks, she encountered 6 impassable curb cuts. Watch the video: walkboston.org/clearcurbcuts
This article was featured in WalkBoston’s January/February 2020 newsletter.
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