Jayashree Nagabhushana

October 28, 2002

Dear Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board:

As a blind tax-paying American, I would like to inform you that the proposed, "Architectural Barriers Act (ABA) is a violation of my "Public Right-of-Way." It assumes, at a potential cost of 40 billion dollars (which is just plain madness), that I cannot ever be viewed as a competent and efficient cane or dog traveler who can be responsible for my own safety or the safety of others.

There are simply no grounds for the mass installation of tactile re-surfacing along the edges of every sidewalk in our great country. It compromises the functionality of our wheel chair driving comrades, as it does our community of white cane users. Implementation of such environmental alterations is an immense breech of face the ADA has maintained with America’s disabled. Keep your fears as sighted non-disabled people to yourselves. You assume that we are afraid, and that we do not have the skills required for independent travel.

I ask you to seriously reconsider making this act into law. If it is so important for you to use the case of the disabled to generate jobs, and funding for those communities that could benefit from them, then seek to invest that 40 billion dollars in bolstering special education programs or give it to Social Security so that America’s steadily increasing elderly population will not have to die because you couldn’t allow them the money to purchase the expensive variety of medications they require.

For the love of all that is sane in the world, do not break down any progress we have made as America’s blind and visually impaired. Allow this act to go through, and you will compromise the legitimacy we have worked so hard for.

Sincerely,

Jayashree Nagabhushana