L.A. Launches Sidewalk Ramp Project to Aid the Disabled

Boyle Heights resident Juan Villafuerte beamed as he watched wet concrete splatter onto a neighborhood street Wednesday.

“That’s beautiful,” said Villafuerte, sitting in his wheelchair, as city workers smoothed the concrete to create a ramp at the edge of the sidewalk.

The new curb cut at Fickett Street and Wabash Avenue is one of 40,000 the city of Los Angeles plans to install as part of a newly aggressive effort to finally comply with the federal Americans With Disabilities Act.

City officials say they will use $50 million from a national settlement with tobacco companies over the next five years to create wheelchair ramps at corners across Los Angeles. About 7,200 will be built this year in priority areas near transit corridors, schools and public buildings.

Villafuerte, 48, who has been in a wheelchair since an auto accident 15 years ago, said the ramps will help him avoid having to roll down driveways into traffic to cross streets, or risk toppling over a steep curb.

“It’s dangerous,” he said. “I’ve fallen down and had to wait for people to come help me up. Sometimes if I can’t go over the side, I’m just stuck.”

Most sidewalks in Los Angeles were built before curb cuts were required, noted Gregory Scott, director of the city Department of Public Works.

The lack of sidewalk ramps is the top complaint made to the city’s new Department on Disability, which is working to comply with the federal law. The city is waiting to see if the curb cut program will satisfy the U.S. Justice Department’s demands that Los Angeles improve access for the disabled.

“It’s so gratifying, because when we began this process, we didn’t see any way to pay for them,” said Sharon Morris, executive director of the Department on Disability.

On Wednesday, Mayor Richard Riordan, City Councilman Nick Pacheco and other officials gathered on the Boyle Heights corner as a blue cement truck churned and poured wet concrete into a frame at the edge of the sidewalk. Riordan hailed the plan as not only an important legal step, but a moral obligation.

“Many of us take for granted our mobility and access throughout the city,” he said. But for senior citizens, the disabled and mothers pushing baby strollers, he added, “having curb ramps and sidewalk repairs can make all the difference in the world.”

Los Angeles will receive $312 million over the next 25 years as its share of a national settlement between tobacco companies and 45 states. Riordan has proposed using $250 million of that to build curb ramps and repair more than 650 miles of sidewalks.

The concept of using most of the city’s tobacco settlement money for the curb cuts has come under fire from some anti-smoking groups, who say the funds should be earmarked solely for tobacco education and smoking prevention. This year, city leaders agreed to spend about $10 million of the settlement money on curb cuts and $1.7 million of it on tobacco education programs. The matter will be reviewed yearly.

Councilman Michael Feuer, who headed the committee that reviewed the issue, said the tobacco money will help meet a pressing need that otherwise would be hard to address. “This is a source of money that enables us to do this without cutting into other services in Los Angeles,” he said.