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3 decades after Americans With Disabilities Act passage, Lancaster curb ramp project nearing completion

Intelligencer Journal - 9/14/2020

Watchdog was recently making his way down South Duke Street in Lancaster city when he noticed orange cones next to a ripped-up curb.

Curious, the Watchdog did some checking.

Work at intersections along the street and elsewhere in the city is related to something an able-bodied person may not give a second thought to: getting on or off a sidewalk at an intersection.

For people who use wheelchairs, walkers or motorized scooters, curbs are obstacles.

The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and subsequent revised regulations to the law require state and local governments to, among other things, improve curbs to make them accessible to people with disabilities.

But for Lancaster and other cities, that was easier said than done.

Like many other cities, Lancaster has always cited money as the main obstacle to making its curbs ADA compliant. And many cities, including Lancaster, have been sued over issue.

The law required governments to install or have a plan to install wheelchair-accessible curb ramps beginning in 1992.

The city and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation began the work in the 1990s, with PennDOT addressing state roads in the city.

PennDOT budgeted $75 million in 1994 for statewide projects to make intersections compliant with the federal law by adding curb ramps, according to a Lancaster New Era article published that September. That included an estimated $2.44 million for curb ramps at nearly 2,000 Lancaster County intersections.

In July 2001, the New Era reported Lancaster city needed to install curb ramps at some 1,900 intersections.

Four years later, Phil Keller, Wayne Koch and Tina Matt-Ressler of the advocacy group Lancaster disABLED for Change and Justice sued the city and PennDOT in federal court, claiming they were in violation of the ADA. Keller and Koch have since died.

The city had offered a 12-year timetable to fix the remaining intersections — an estimated 1,200 at the time.

“Twelve years is out of the question,” Rocco Iacullo, the group’s attorney, told a reporter in 2005.

The city and the advocacy group ultimately entered into a consent decree that gave the city until the end of 2022 to finish the job.

And that brings us to the present.

Matt Metzler, the city’s deputy director of public works, said he hopes to have work at the remaining 150 intersections completed by the end of 2021.

He estimated the 688 intersections that were part of the consent decree will cost about $5 million. The city is paying for the work with bonds.

“It’s the right thing to do. We’re catching up on mistakes that needed to be fixed,” he said.

Costs per curb vary, depending on grading and amount of concrete used, but Metzler estimated the cost at $5,000 to $7,000.

Doug Lamb Construction Inc., of Elizabethtown, is doing the work. Its contract this year is for about $500,000, Metzler said.

Iacullo said he’s pleased the city wants to get the job done ahead of the consent decree deadline.

But it’s also “bittersweet that (Koch and Keller) do not get to see the results of their advocacy,” he said.

Notice any problems?

Email the Lancaster Watchdog at watchdog@lnpnews.com or go to LancasterOnline.com/watchdog and tell us about it.

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