Randall Schmidt Discusses Lawsuit Over Accessibility of Chicago Crosswalks on Chicago Tonight
Justice Department Joins Lawsuit Over Accessibility of Chicago Crosswalks
Video available at the WTTW website.
The Justice Department last week joined a lawsuit against the city of Chicago that alleges the city has failed to make crosswalks accessible to people who are blind, deaf-blind, or have low vision.
The DOJ says the city is required to install accessible pedestrian signals that give audio or tactile cues when it’s safe to cross the street. According to the suit, Chicago has just 15 of those signals out of 2,700 crosswalks with visual signals.
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Randall Schmidt, a clinical professor of law at the University of Chicago and a director at the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic, says state and local governments are bound by federal law to make services and facilities accessible to people with and without disabilities.
“(The city has) put up these walk/don’t walk signs for sighted individuals, so they need to treat individuals without sight equally and provide them with a way of knowing whether it’s safe to cross or not cross busy intersections,” Schmidt said.
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