Oregon Public Broadcasting

A survey conducted by the Bend City Council found that 90 percent of the city’s street ramps were out of compliance with the American with Disabilities Act.  As David Nogueras reports, if the city were to fix all 6000 ramps it could cost more than $30 million. 

This summer, advocates for the disabled marked the 20th anniversary of the American’s with Disabilities Act.  But two decades after the law’s enactment, some communities across America are still lagging behind when it comes to meeting the law’s requirements.

Bend is no different.  The city has made strides in bring public buildings into compliance, but according to resident Robin Stevens city curb ramps remain a problem.

Robin Stevens: “Some of them are so bad, you can’t even get on them.”

Stevens lives in Bend.  He was born with cerebral palsy and gets around using an electric wheelchair.

Robin Stevens:  “The curb is too high.  They don’t make them flat enough for you to go up there easy.  You need to really slam into and then it messes up the chairs.”

Stevens isn’t the first Bend resident to be dissatisfied with the city’s adherence to the ADA.

Back in 2001, four Bend residents filed a lawsuit against the city. That suit led to a federal investigation, one of many across the country.

Four years later Bend settled with the The U.S. Department of Justice.  The city agreed to bring all public government buildings into ADA compliance as well as to conduct an inventory of the city’s curb ramps.

Susan Duncan is Bend’s Accessibility Manager. The job was established as part of the city’s settlement with the DOJ.

Susan Duncan: “We feel like we’ve reached a milestone in our understanding in our survey how many we have in the system and now what we have to do is really up to the investigator to tell us that.”

Duncan says the city will wait for federal officials to say how many ramps need to be adjusted for the city to meet the terms of the settlement.

She says the city will fix at least 700 curbs by the end of next year and likely hundreds more by the federal deadline in 2014.