Dan Burke
|
October 26, 2002 |
To The Access Board
Subject: Pedestrian Crossings
I am writing in response to the proposed standards regarding audible traffic
indicators and detectable tactile warnings. I oppose any regulation requiring
their indiscriminate installation at intersections in my community, in Montana,
or indeed anywhere in the country. There is not substantive research that I know
of that supports the utility of such dramatic interventions, and thus the
effectiveness of the current proposed standards cannot be established by any
acceptable objective standard, other than by wishful thinking.
These recommendations betray a fundamental misunderstanding of blindness and the
ways that blind people approach travel. They would, if implemented in their
present form, impose the concept of environmental change as a means of greater
access on people whose access depends more on the opportunity to learn and
develop specific skills in order to function in the environment -- and thus
achieve equality. Therefore, these regulations would become an institutional
form of oppression rather than freedom -- something not intended by the authors
of the ADA, but long a concern of the blind in relation to that landmark
legislation. These regulations represent a form of paternalism toward the blind
in all its classic attributes -- good-intentions and lack of understanding that
result in accommodations not needed or desired by the "objects" of the "good
works." They will not be more palatable if standardized and implemented by the
Access Board, whose implementation of standards for physical access have been so
profoundly important to Americans who experience mobility limitations.
I am a 45-year-old blind, single father, and a member of the Board of Directors
of the Montana affiliate of the National Federation of the Blind. I have a
Master's degree in Rehabilitation Counseling, and more than fifteen years
working in my field -- in a general VR program, on a state-wide supported
employment systems-change grant, and the last eight of these years of experience
I have served as an Access Coordinator at the University of Montana in Missoula.
Thus, I have broad experience dealing with physical, program and employment
access for people with every conceivable disability.
I have traveled with a long white cane for about eight years, and there is no
intersection in this state I fear to cross using my cane travel techniques --
including Missoula's notorious "Malfunction Junction," a confluence of three
major arteries, one of which is U.S. Highways 93 and 12. These are techniques
that, when properly applied, make the community in which I live and work
completely accessible. They are technique's I was taught by professional
Orientation and Mobility Instructors, learned through sharing with other
competent blind travelers, and developed with experience. They are not magic,
and I am not extraordinary. It simply takes training.
I must now qualify my earlier statement -- there is one notable exception to my
sense of confidence in travel. I do not feel so confident crossing at those few
intersections now equipped with audible traffic indicators in my state.
These are the problems with audible indicators that make them unwise,
unnecessary and unsafe:
1) Audible traffic indicators are not needed. Blind people can cross the street
safely by relying on the time-tested techniques of listening to traffic flow to
determine when crossing is safe, and by paralleling traffic to stay on course
across a long intersection;
2. Audible traffic signals are not wanted, in fact are dangerous, because they
mask the critical environmental cue that already exists -- the sound of traffic
flow;
3) Audible traffic signals give a false sense of security, in that they suggest
that a blind traveler should now cross because it is safe to do so, when in fact
they give no cues as to whether drivers are turning right on a red light, and of
course, they mask the sound of such a vehicle in motion;
4) Audible traffic signals do not give clear information about direction, and I
have never been able to discern comfortably which direction is being indicated.
This is particularly a problem at relatively small intersections, in which the
two posts of lights and audible sounds are fairly close together -- often the
case in Montana;
5) Similarly, in Helena, Montana where more than one intersection has audible
traffic indicators within a short one-block area, the remote signals are also
audible, further confusing and obscuring the environmental cues of the traffic
flow.
6) Audible traffic indicators are difficult to screen out in order to employ
sounder techniques, in fact it is hard to stay still at an intersection when an
obnoxiously loud audible indicator begins sounding behind a pedestrian - blind
or sighted. The ding serves as a prod that is difficult to override or resist,
posing the danger of jumping off the sidewalk before being able to discern if it
is indeed safe to cross. In particular, this is a serious problem that
interferes with my own practice of pausing for a few seconds to ensure that the
traffic in motion is not responding to a left-turn-only indicator and, if this
is not the case, that a vehicle is not turning right on the red signal into my
path.
All this noise serves to create an auditory "fog," if you will, which seriously
interferes with the well-researched and widely employed travel techniques of
blind Americans. To implement regulations installing audible traffic signals
indiscriminately would prove disastrous to the free and unrestricted mobility
that we, the blind of the Nation, now enjoy.
I am sure the "well-intentioned" purpose of audible indicators is to ensure safe
pedestrian crossing for the blind, but their installation would not increase
access to the community for me, but create new barriers -- barriers which do not
now exist.
The installation of detectable tactile warnings, in particular truncated domes,
are similarly unnecessary and potentially detrimental to blind travelers.
1) Curb cuts are negotiable by the blind if adequate slope is provided;
2) Banked sides of curb cuts are excellent and adequate tactile indicators of
the sidewalk meeting the street;
3) The necessity of tactile warnings of any kind owe to an overreaction to
wheelchair access -- that is, the removal of slope and banked curb cuts in
"blended" meetings of sidewalk and street - and thus must be attributed to bad
planning and engineering in those cases where less drastic approaches would
serve a greater number of people with disabilities;
4) In areas of the country, such as Montana, where snow is a part of the
landscape much of the year, truncated domes will become barriers that catch
berms of snow as it is removed from the streets and sidewalks. They will become
the anchors of ice-clogs at the meeting of street and sidewalk, and will serve
to obscure the optimum entry to the crosswalk that could be
indicated by a reasonably sloped and/or banked curb cut. Therefore they
will create a travel hazard for pedestrians in general, rather than eliminate
one for the blind. Further, they will make entry to the street impossible for
wheelchair users;
5) Truncated domes are expensive and frivolous in the face of more functional
and thoughtful planning and engineering that includes use of adequate slope
and/or banked curb cuts.
It is, of course, conceivable that there will be locations where adequate slope
can not be provided at the approach of a sidewalk to an intersection, and thus
where safe travel would be compromised for the average blind person who has
received proper mobility training. In such instances, some form of tactile
warning may be necessary, and I refer the Access Board to those recommendations
offered by the National Federation of the Blind that address these occurrences.
Contrary to what many sighted people may believe, I would always prefer to
negotiate a curb, rather than a curb cut. However, I have learned to negotiate a
curb cut, while my friends and colleagues in wheelchairs cannot develop skills
to climb curbs in their chairs, necessitating environmental solutions for their
access. Thus, this is a reasonable compromise that I am happy and able to make
in the interest of equal access. However, I cannot imagine safely learning to
negotiate audible traffic indicators, and I believe that tactile warnings (in
particular, truncated domes) are necessary only when other environmental cues
are removed for the sake of access for others. It seems to me, then, that just
as it is cheaper and wiser to build access for wheelchairs in the first place,
it is not wise to build in other hazards for blind travelers that necessitate
retrofitting our streets and intersections at such extraordinary expense.
In summary, audible traffic indicators present more barriers and hazards than
they can possibly solve -- especially when safe travel is already possible
without them. Similarly, truncated domes prove themselves to be greater problems
than they solve. The expense of these environmental non-solutions is unwarranted
and unwanted by the blind. The implementation of the proposed regulations will
result in reduced access for the blind and an unconscionable act of paternalism
perpetrated upon the blind of the nation.
I speak to hundreds of citizens each year about the ADA and civil rights for
people with disabilities. These include small and large presentations, as well
as numerous one-on-one sessions with students who have disabilities. Hand in
hand with the explanation that people with disabilities have rights, and should
insist on them, is the message that the ADA also has provisions of that protect
the right of any person with a disability to refuse any accommodation they do
not want. This provision was insisted upon by the National Federation of the
Blind, because no protection of one's right to access and participation is
complete without the right to reject paternalism. As I tell those to whom I
speak of the ADA, this provision exists in the law because too often blind
people are helped across the
street when they are simply waiting for the bus. Enacting the current proposals
will cement that kind of well-intentioned paternalism into our every street
corner. Because the ADA is nothing if it is not a protection against
paternalism, its purposes and intentions will be drowned out by the sounds of
audible traffic signals. We are responding to reject the paternalism embodied in
the current proposed standards.
I urge the Access Board to severely curtail its recommendations for these
changes, and to implement regulations that reflect the true requirements of
blind travelers. Don't give us what we do not need or want. Do not fail by
acting when no action is called for.
Dan Burke