Taxpayers pay for wheelchair 'ramps to nowhere'

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KHOU) – They're intended to help people with disabilities get around town.

Wheelchair ramps that lead to nowhere? Texas Department of Transportation answers tough questions about these sidewalk additions that are frustrating disability advocates.

But tonight many of the very people the wheelchair ramps are built to serve are questioning why the state even bothered.

Worse, they call the projects a waste of tax dollars.

Toni Lawrence first noticed the ramp built into the curb near her home a few weeks ago.

She couldn't help but notice something else too.

"The problem is, there's no sidewalk to extend it down the beltway," said Lawrence as she stood next to the ramp which quickly drops off and dead-ends into the grass at the intersection of Scotter Drive and the Beltway 8 feeder road.

As Lawrence drove around, she found even more of the ramps to nowhere along the East Beltway.

"Is that wonderful?" Lawrence said pointing to a ramp that runs users right into a bush. "That's my favorite one."

The KHOU 11 News I-Team went to TxDOT, the agency responsible for the installing the ramps, to find out how something like this could happen.

"I know it seems like the sidewalks are not going anywhere," said Deidrea Samuels, A TxDOT spokeswoman. "But the ramps are serving their purpose. We want you to safely cross the street and we want you to get out of the street."

But then what?

The I-Team asked a group of disability advocates from the Houston Center for Independent Living to look at the projects firsthand.

"There wasn't any thought into this," said Vivian Lee as she looked at the ramp from her electric wheelchair.

Other advocates called the ramps an "insult."

"It is pretty much laughing in our face, ha, ha, ha," said Maria Palacios. "We [will] show you the possibility of access, but you cannot get there."

That's because while the ramps would allow users to get out of the street, in order to even get to the intersection someone in a wheelchair would have to either roll through the grass or share the road with traffic.

The I-Team asked four people with disabilities if they would feel comfortable using their wheelchairs or walkers along the busy Beltway 8 feeder.

None of them said they would.

"I wouldn't try it," said Lee emphatically.

"The only way I would even consider anybody using this ramp would be like if they were depressed and wanted to commit suicide," said Anna Leon as she watched the cars and trucks go by.

Samuels says TxDOT is just following the Americans With Disabilities Act which requires the curb ramps, but does not mandate sidewalks.

The I-Team pointed out to Samuels that once someone in a wheelchair used the ramp that person couldn't get anywhere else.

"Now they may be on grass," Samuels said, "but they're off the street, which in urban areas the street is very dangerous."

TxDOT said it doesn't keep a tally of how many of the ramps don't connect to sidewalks, but in just a few hours with the disability advocates, the I-Team found nearly a dozen.

"What are we supposed to do with this?" asked Palacios when she saw the ramp with the bush at the end of it.

The state says each ramp costs about $1,200 to install.

Palacios says without connecting sidewalks, it's money wasted.

"I would rather see nothing," said Palacios. "Because when I see nothing I know that at least precious funding and taxpayers' dollars have not been thrown away."

Samuels says in the last few years TxDOT has begun incorporating sidewalks into its project plans.

When the I-Team asked why it took more than 20 years since the passage of the ADA, for the state to do so, Samuels said she didn't have a good answer for that.