Tour of Montrose observes wheelchair accessibility

“Prescribed paths” necessary

Alan Halter, Jun 15, 11.

Wheelchair users must follow a “prescribed path” in order to successfully travel along sidewalks, according to Kelly Moore in a Hear Our Houston audio walking tour (mp3) titled A Walk with Wheels featured in the Rice Design Alliance’s OffCite Blog.

On June 7, writers Kelly Moore and Addie Tsai took a walk in the Montrose area of Houston beginning at the corner of Mandell and Branard Streets and ending at the Labyrinth at St. Thomas (see map here). Their purpose was to provide a “public generated audio walking tour” for Hear Our Houston which promotes walking to find the “hidden gems” of Houston. Along the way they expressed frustrations and triumphs common to many wheelchair users.

Moore, who uses a manual wheelchair designed with a battery for extra boost over bumps, claims “the urban environment is not really made for someone in a wheelchair.” For the wheelchair user, various bumps, holes, “giant gutters,” ramps, and curbs become more than just street obstacles; they are “landmarks” that define the person’s journey making “the world feel like a maze or labyrinth.” People like Kelly Moore, “know where all the bumps in the sidewalk are,” and they “know which ramps do and don’t work,” which creates a “thought path” essentially becoming a path of least resistance for the wheelchair user traveling from one place to the next.

Furthermore, with various street obstacles and the standard width of sidewalks, there is a certain amount of “negotiating terrain” that arises while a wheelchair user is accompanied by a walking pedestrian like her friend Addie Tsai. Moore affirms, “it’s nice to go on a walk side-by-side with a friend” as opposed to being pushed by a friend. Her semi-electric wheelchair allows for increased independence as it alleviates the reliance of someone else to push her along when going on walks. In addition, the option of driving a car allows the freedom to move about and increases accessibility to far away places for handicapped individuals making Houston “a great city to move to” because of its vast road infrastructure.

The City of Houston was placed under a court order in 2006 as a result of a lawsuit proposing the City did not install sufficient ADA compliant ramps during a construction project on W. Alabama, according to a 2006 Houston Chronicle article: MOVE IT! Highway problems, costs looked different in 1922:

U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal ruled last week that the city of Houston must install wheelchair ramps in the curbs of 34 intersections in the Montrose area — and any others where entire blocks of a street are repaved in the future. The requirement, a provision of the Americans with Disabilities Act, was triggered when the city repaved West Alabama and other streets in preparation for an expected flood of traffic when Spur 527 was closed for reconstruction. Rosenthal ruled in favor of plaintiff Kristen Jones and her attorney Dan Lundeen in 2004 and last year approved the list of intersections on streets including West Alabama, Fairview and Webster. The new, permanent, injunction says the ADA requirements apply to any Houston street that gets resurfaced in the future “from intersection to intersection,” and to newly constructed streets. Assistant City Attorney Don Fleming said the city’s former policy was not to rebuild ramps if they were still “usable,” but to install new ramps if there were none present when a street was resurfaced. “The mayor, the city and its engineers are committed to full compliance with the court order, the ADA and related standards to ensure complete access,” Fleming said.

Visit OffCite.org and Hear Our Houston for more audio walking tours.
For more information regarding ADA policy visit the City of Houston ADA Coordinator’s homepage.
Disability Rights Texas is the federally designated legal protection and advocacy agency (P&A) for people with disabilities in Texas. Their mission is to help people with disabilities understand and exercise their rights under the law, ensuring their full and equal participation in society.