Sidewalk ramps bite into roads budget

As Pennsylvania scrambles to rebuild crumbling roads and bridges, it must also replace hundreds of thousands of sidewalk pedestrian ramps.

In the Philadelphia region, that will mean rebuilding more than 60,000 sidewalk curb cuts along state-maintained highways, at a cost of at least $300 million over 10 years, and thousands more on local streets. In Philadelphia, sidewalk ramps will get about half of the city's road budget, officials say.

The ramps will be rebuilt to make them less steep, to provide textured surfaces that blind pedestrians can feel, to relocate them for easier access, and to improve drainage so rainwater doesn't pool at their bases.

Costs of the ramps vary, from about $3,000 to $7,000 each.

On Feb. 26, $23 million - nearly 10 percent - of the federal stimulus money for Pennsylvania Department of Transportation projects in Southeastern Pennsylvania was set aside for the ramps.

That quickly brought complaints from some local officials, as 39 percent of Chester County's stimulus money and 33 percent of Delaware County's stimulus money was designated for curb cuts.

"We don't have sidewalks in Chester County," said Carol Aichele, chair of the Chester County Board of Commissioners, after PennDot earmarked $8 million for sidewalk ramps out of $20.5 million allotted for the county. "We don't need ADA ramps to nowhere," she added, referring to the federal Americans With Disabilities Act.

"Why give Philadelphia $2.4 million and give Chester [County] $8 million?" she asked. "There are a lot more sidewalks in Philadelphia."

She said that she supported ramps "where there are sidewalks," but that much of the need had been met.

Aichele said the stimulus money would have been better spent on more ambitious highway projects in commercial corridors such as Routes 202, 30 and 422 to "build a foundation for a prosperous economic future."

Rina Cutler, Philadelphia's deputy mayor for transportation, said, "There needs to be a much bigger discussion on ADA ramps. ADA ramps have created a very serious unfunded mandate for everyone."

Nancy Salandra, an advocate for the disabled in Philadelphia, said curb cuts liberate people with disabilities and are widely used by others, including parents with strollers, bicyclists, and people using canes.

"The truth is, everybody uses them, and they're critically important," said Salandra, who is director of independent living services at Liberty Resources, an advocacy organization for the disabled. "People would not be able to get around without them. With curb cuts, we see more elderly disabled out on scooters. They're able to get their lives back again."

Salandra noted that in the early 1990s, disabled residents sued the administration of Mayor Edward G. Rendell to compel Philadelphia to put in curb cuts whenever it repaved streets.

"People went to jail for this," she said, referring to protesters arrested challenging the city. "To go backward would be terrible."

Under a court mandate to build ramps that comply with the ADA, PennDot will rebuild about 117,000 ramps statewide over the next 10 years, at a cost of about $820 million, spokesman Richard Kirkpatrick said.

In addition, 113,000 ramps at intersections of state and local roads could cost local governments about $790 million to replace. There are also thousands of sidewalks under strictly local jurisdiction where ramps must be rebuilt.

In late 2007, a U.S. District Court judge in Erie ruled that PennDot must bring ramps into compliance with the ADA. Handicapped residents in northwestern Pennsylvania had sued PennDot, saying that ramps in Erie and Meadville were so poorly built that people in wheelchairs could not use them.

In Philadelphia, transportation chief Cutler said workers were examining 20,000 sidewalk ramps to determine which must be rebuilt and which could be repaired or left intact. Philadelphia installed 16,000 and PennDot 4,000, she said.

"It's not clear that all will have to be replaced," Cutler said. "The ones outside of Center City and South Philly would comply, I hope.

"In the long term, it's just something that should be done anyway, and we'd like to do it as quickly as possible," she said. "Money is an issue. . . . There's no money to rebuild 16,000.

"The real problem," she said, "is, this is just another unfunded federal mandate."

She estimated the cost of new ramps in Philadelphia alone could be more than $300 million, including all of the local streets.

The city has 110 miles of resurfacing planned for 2009, with 4,400 ramps at 1,100 intersections. It is budgeting about $150,000 a mile to repave streets, and an additional $150,000 to rebuild the ramps in each mile.

Philadelphia is slated to get $2.4 million from the federal stimulus for sidewalk ramps. City transportation officials said that would pay for about 700 ramps at about 175 intersections. In addition, two stimulus-funded resurfacing projects in the city will include about 2,000 ramps as part of the $21 million work.

A significant amount of the highway stimulus money was allotted to sidewalk ramps because the work can be done quickly, as required by the stimulus law, and because the ramps often need to be built in conjunction with other roadwork, said Chuck Davies, PennDot's assistant district executive for design for Southeastern Pennsylvania.

Aichele, who chairs the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, which on Feb. 26 approved the stimulus spending plan for area transportation projects, said: "Our choices were limited. . . . A lot of projects were ruled out" by the requirement to begin work quickly.

"The exercise was to access the stimulus money," Aichele said. "If we're going to spend money on ADA ramps, it does create construction jobs. But most unemployed people [in Chester County] are not construction workers - they're more high-tech people."

PennDot will limit its paving work to the amount it can do while also rebuilding sidewalk ramps, said Nick Martino, assistant district executive for maintenance in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

He said that would amount to about $20 million for paving and $20 million for ramps this year in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

"It's something we have to do," Martino said. "It's a balancing act."

James Weisman, a New York lawyer who specializes in ADA cases and who successfully sued New York City for sidewalk ramps, said the disabilities act "does not require you to do unreasonable things. You can say, 'Let's phase it in in a way that doesn't hurt us.' "

He said there is no obligation to build "ramps to nowhere."

"You only need curb ramps where there are pedestrian rights of way," said Weisman, who is general counsel for the United Spinal Association and a board member of the American Association of People With Disabilities. "A curb ramp to a grassy surface is a silly idea."

Weisman said the costs of new curb ramps are significant, but the rewards are, too.

"Without them, you keep people homebound and unemployed," he said. "In the long run, it pays. But in the short run, there are bullets that may have to be bitten."