Manhattan Federal Judge Paul Engelmayer rules "NYC has violated the ADA by not installing accessible pedestrian signlas for the blind."

Dear Colleages, 

A federal lawsuit, brought by the the American Council of the Blind in 2018, sued NYC Govt. on behalf of plaintiffs Michael Golfo and Christina Curry, claiming that out of the city’s 13,000 pedestrian traffic signals, just over 2 percent conveyed information in a way that is accessible to blind pedestrians. 

The lawsuit argued that the city’s Department of Transportation violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by neglecting to add audible features to crosswalk signals that let visually impaired people know when they have the traffic signal. There are about 205,000 blind or otherwise visually-impaired people who live in the city and face this inaccessible and hostile environement. 

The arguments have found favour with the District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer and on 20 Oct 2020, the court ruled  the current “near-total absence” of accessible crossing information violates the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the federal disability law that preceded the ADA.

The tuesday ruling notes that blind pedestrians in New York will typically stop at the curb and assume they are at a point where they can cross the street. Without any accessible indicator of a crossing, however, blind pedestrians cross somewhere other than the crosswalk 30 percent of the time. This leaves them to rely on other auditory cues, which is prohibitively difficult with New York’s level of ambient noise. 

In particular, Engelmayer ruled the city had failed to equip traffic signals with accessible pedestrian signals — APS for short — which include alarms or other audible alerts. The Court held that the absence of non-visual crossing information at more than 95% of the City’s signalized intersections denies plaintiffs meaningful access to the City’s signalized intersections and the pedestrian grid, in violation of the ADA and Rehabilitation Act,” Engelmayer wrote.

“The Court further holds that some, but not all, of the City’s projects with respect to traffic signals gave rise to a duty under these statutes to add APS [Accessible Pedestrian Signals]—a duty that the City has largely breached.”

The Court ordered  the NYC lawyers to seek an agreement with petitioners to make more intersections safe for pedestrians who cannot see. The two sides must submit a letter to the court by Oct. 30 laying out a path forward to come to a resolution, which could include benchmarks and deadlines for adding APS to street signals.   Though, the court's ruling itself does not specify how many signals must be installed.

Mayor de Blasio spokeswoman Laura Feyer said the city is already working to expand accessibility for blind people at crosswalks — but declined to provide a timeline for the installation of more infrastructure to make good on the judge’s ruling. 

“The city is dedicated to making our streets more accessible to all New Yorkers with and without disabilities, including those who are blind or have low vision,”  “We will continue to install APS across the city and are consistently working to increase access for the blind and low vision community in all facets of life.”  said Feyer.

Sources: 

1. pressfrom dot info

2. NYDailyNewsdotcom

NAB takes the BMC to High Court for denying full salaries to disabled and older employees during lockdown

Dear Colleagues,

National Association of Blind (NAB) Mumbai has dragged the Brihanmumbai Muncipal Corporation (BMC) to the Mumbai High Court in a public interest litigation (PIL) which seeks payment of full salaries to 278 visually impaired BMC employees for the period when the lockdown was implemented in its strictest form – March 23 to June 30.  

An affidavit opposing the PIL signed by Vishwanath Jadhav, joint chief personnel officer of the establishment section of the BMC’s General Administration Department,  says that paying full salaries to these employees will adversely affect its finances.

It was learnt that the BMC denied full salaries for the strictest lockdown phase to not just its visually-impaired employees, but also to the physically disabled and those above 55 years of age, who were exempted from attendance on health grounds, the affidavit indicates. 

The affidavit, defending BMC’s decision to not pay full salaries to the visually impaired employees, refers to the money “the BMC may have to pay” to the physically disabled as well.

It says, “If these categories of employees are granted special leave without loss of pay, the respondent corporation will be required to pay approximately Rs12.22 crore (Rs 2.75 crore for visually impaired employees and Rs 9.47crore for other disabled employees).”

The next sentence specifies another category of employees which may seek parity from the BMC if the court were to ask it to pay salaries for the same period to the disabled employees.

The affidavit says, “Similarly, the corporation has granted relaxation in attending duties to approximately 283 employees beyond 55 years of age having health issues such as diabetes, high blood pressure and dialysis (for kidney ailments). Similar demand will be raised by these categories of employees, even though they are not eligible, and if they are to be treated according to the same principle, then the corporation will have to pay approximately Rs 422.59 crore, which will adversely affect its financial condition.”

Appearing for the NAB, advocate Uday Warunjikar,  submitted before the court that BMC had nullified its liability to the visually impaired employees with retrospective effect, as its directive issued in March, only exempted these employees from attending offices. However, a directive issued on May 26, 2020 said that the relevant period will be treated as “permissible leave.”

He said that while he had details of only one employee at the time of filing the PIL, the NAB had managed to get details of more than 25 employees to show that it wasn’t just the salary for the relevant period, which was affected, but the situation continues as the BMC was recovering “arrears” of salary deductions from them, forcing them to work on zero or extremely low pay.

The PIL cites the directives of the state government as well as the Centre since March 2020 to show that they had exempted disabled employees from attendance and one such directive said that they be treated on “leave without loss of pay.”

Senior Advocate BV Bukhari, appearing for the BMC, submitted that the BMC was not bound by the resolutions or notifications of the state or the Central government, as it was a local self-government body.

He said that the BMC was not only following the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, but, in fact, was doing more than what other governments were doing.

The court, however, questioned the BMC’s assertion that it was not bound to follow the notifications of the state or the Central government, saying it was doing so in certain other aspects related to the pandemic. 

The bench has reserved its judgement on the PIL. 

Update (29 Oct 2020):

....... Read subsequent post on the PIL judgement here:  "Mumbai High Court declares BMC circular illegal, directs payment of full salaries for absence during pandemic period"