Queens Corners To Be Ramped

       The City of New York has agreed to install sidewalk ramps at over 27,000 Queens street corners, to make them accessible for disabled pedestrians, as part of a citywide federal court agreement.
The announcement is part of a $213 million dollar city-wide settlement of a lawsuit brought by the Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association (EPVA) against the City of New York. The veterans claimed that the citys delay in providing ramps at every street corner violated the federal Americans With Disabilities Act. The eight-year suit was initiated in 1994, during Rudolph Giulianis term as mayor.
Nearly half of the projects 61,000 unprotected corners are in Queens, according to trial records of the Manhattan-based U.S. District Court.
Transportation Department [DOT] construction crews have already begun operation, and last week, completed upgrading the corners at 126th Street and 18th Avenue in College Point. The DOT is expected to complete installation of the majority of standard street ramps by 2008, and at more complex corners by 2010.
DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall, whose crews maintain the boroughs 2,443 miles of roadways, declared, "Everyone, including the disabled, should have unobstructed access to all of the citys sidewalks."
To date, the DOT has installed pedestrian ramps at more than 60% of the citys corners. Before this agreement, priority was given to install the sloped ramps in the most heavily-traveled sections of the city as well as in neighborhoods that were regularly used by persons with disabilities.
A grateful Queens BP Helen Marshall said, "Im very happy that new pedestrian safety improvements for the disabled are being installed throughout Queens." It was learned that Queens community boards would be asked to monitor the projects progress in their areas.
Prime beneficiaries are the boroughs handicapped as well as its large senior citizen population. Well more than a third of Queens 90,000 war veterans, who form New York Citys largest concentration of ex-servicemen, fought in World War II, according to the Veterans Administration.
For the past eight years, the EPVA has been in federal court to compel implementation of the Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which stated that local and state governments were required to provide curb cuts on public streets by 1995. The court-approved agreement finally places ramped curb installation and its funding on a formal eight-year schedule.
"This settlement will enable every wheelchair user to enjoy a basic federal right to be able to cross from one side of the street to the other," declared Attorney Robert B. Stulberg, who represented the EPVA.