Chicago has violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to keep sidewalks, crosswalks and curb ramps accessible to people with disabilities, a lawsuit filed against the city alleges.
People who use mobility aids such as wheelchairs and electric scooters are often forced to take circuitous routes or risk traveling in the street with cars and buses because the city’s pedestrian rights of way are flooded, cracked, or otherwise in states of disrepair, the lawsuit alleges.
“Throughout the City of Chicago, public pedestrian rights of way are dilapidated, dangerous, and generally inaccessible to people with mobility disabilities. These barriers are pervasive and prevent people with mobility disabilities from traveling freely and participating in everyday life,” reads the proposed class-action lawsuit, filed in federal court in Chicago last month.
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Among the four named plaintiffs is Chicago Transit Authority board member Michele Lee, a disability rights advocate. She’s served on the CTA board since 2022.
The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys with Disability Rights Advocates, the group behind the lawsuit that resulted in a federal judge ordering Chicago to install audible crossing signals at pedestrian intersections with traffic lights earlier this year.
Kristen Cabanban, a spokesperson for the city’s Law Department, said the city does not comment on pending litigation. So did Erica Schroeder, a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Transportation.
On a recent Wednesday, Lee, who has a spinal cord injury and uses a wheelchair, showed the Tribune around the Streeterville neighborhood. She moved to the neighborhood, which is home to Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and frequented by tourists, to have greater access than other parts of the city.
But, Lee demonstrated how inaccessible Chicago streets can be for wheelchair users — even in one of the most well-resourced neighborhoods.
On Ohio Street, Lee crossed Fairbanks Court in the direction of a favorite restaurant, MingHin Cuisine. But the curb ramp at the end of the crosswalk was too steep for her power wheelchair to climb on either of its slopes, leaving her stranded in the crosswalk.
When she wants to get to the restaurant, Lee has to cross the street on the other side, travel down the entire block past the restaurant, and then cross back at the next light to make it there.
“I’m very fortunate to live in this neighborhood — it’s a lovely neighborhood,” Lee said. “I should be able to navigate my neighborhood just like everyone else in the city.”
In 2007, Chicago settled a class-action lawsuit by agreeing to invest millions of dollars in the installation of curb ramps across the city.
But the lawsuit filed in September alleges the city has stopped many of the systems it had implemented in response to the settlement and that the city’s curb ramps are often flooded, damaged or even missing altogether.
“From what we can see, a lot of great change happened,” as a result of the 2007 settlement, said attorney Rachel Weisberg, who represents Lee and the other plaintiffs. “What we’re seeing from our investigation is that these curb ramps that the city has spent a lot of time, energy (and) resources to create are not effectively being maintained.”
The city’s sidewalks and crosswalks are “similarly riddled with access barriers,” the lawsuit alleges. “Many sidewalks are deteriorated, cracked, crumbling, sunken, uplifted, uneven, covered with holes, and/or overgrown with vegetation.”
One plaintiff, Cherlnell Lane, alleges she was thrown from her wheelchair and injured when her wheelchair snagged on a rut in a curb ramp near her home in Washington Park. Lane was using that particular curb ramp because the curb ramp closest to her apartment was flooded, she alleges.
The lawsuit describes the city’s systems for dealing with sidewalk and curb ramp repair as an “uncoordinated patchwork of programs that collectively fail to provide access.”
For instance, thousands of requests for sidewalk repair that come in via 311 have languished for more than a year, the complaint alleges. And the city’s reliance on the Aldermanic Menu Program — for which City Council members use their discretion to initiate and pay for sidewalk maintenance within their wards — results in discrepancies in attention to sidewalk conditions between wards, the complaint alleges.
The lawsuit alleges that the city has also failed to ensure that its Department of Transportation designates an ADA coordinator, in violation of federal regulations.
In addition to the ADA, the proposed class-action alleges the city has violated Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. It requests an order requiring the city to promptly fix damaged and deteriorated sidewalks, curb ramps and crosswalks.
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