Putting Help Within Reach

For the vast majority of motorists, freeway call boxes are a welcome sight in an emergency, but not for Greg Winterbottom. The wheelchair user couldn’t get to most of them if his life or anyone else’s depended on it.

Berms and guardrails block his path. Some phones are mounted too high to reach. The freeway shoulders at other call boxes are so narrow he can’t even get out of his car.

As an Orange County Transportation Authority board member, Winterbottom has made equal access to the highway call-box system a priority. Since September, OCTA has been planning to retrofit all the sites so that people with disabilities--including the deaf and speech-impaired--can use them. The program, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of next year, might cost at least $3 million.

“We want to be proactive, ahead of the curve,” said Winterbottom, who was disabled in a car accident 35 years ago. “This is our responsibility. We don’t want to wait until we get sued.”

Winterbottom and his colleagues at OCTA are aware of a lawsuit in Los Angeles County a few years ago and don’t want to share the court experience.

In that case, four disabled plaintiffs sued Caltrans, the California Highway Patrol, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and the Service Authority for Freeways and Expressways. All have roles in operating call boxes in Los Angeles County.

In a May 1999 settlement, the government agencies agreed to spend $11 million to make 4,471 call boxes in the county accessible to the handicapped and the hearing and speech-impaired.

“We have had some disputes since the settlement, but in the long run, we think that people with disabilities will be much safer on the roads than they were,” said Eve Hill, executive director of the Western Law Center for Disability Rights, which filed the lawsuit.

Hill and other advocates for the disabled contend that the majority of the 17,000 freeway call boxes in California do not comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act, a federal law that requires local governments to provide equal access to public services.

Orange County has about 1,200 call boxes, which are spaced a quarter to a half mile apart on freeways and toll roads. Each is marked with a blue sign and a bright-yellow telephone box. Last year, about 3,000 motorists used them to contact the CHP.

When the call-box system was built in the late 1980s, local transportation officials installed them on raised medians and behind berms or guardrails to provide motorists protection from freeway traffic. At the time, government agencies were under no legal obligation to provide access to the handicapped.

Take Call Box 22 89 on the Garden Grove Freeway between Harbor Boulevard and Haster Street. Separating the phone from the pavement is a 10-inch-high drainage dike. The obstacle is easy to step across, unless you’re disabled.

“This is very hard for me to get over,” said Winterbottom, 54, as he jammed his wheelchair against the asphalt dike. Even with his hand outstretched, the phone was still a foot or two out of reach.

Winterbottom then tried several call boxes on the other side of the freeway, but the shoulders were so narrow that the guardrails prevented him from lowering his wheelchair ramp on the passenger side of his Dodge Caravan. The other option was to open the driver’s door into the traffic lane.

“No way,” Winterbottom said as motorists sped past Call Box 22 56. “I’m not going to get out here.”

While it is unclear how many motorists who use wheelchairs there are, the state Department of Motor Vehicles has distributed 92,804 handicapped placards to Orange County residents, DMV spokesman Ron Owens said.

Some call boxes have “yes” and “no” buttons so speech-impaired drivers can answer basic questions from the operator, such as “Do you need help?” or “Do you need an officer?” But advocates for the disabled say the buttons are inadequate if the motorist needs to convey more detailed information to the operator.

“People with disabilities are rather vulnerable on the freeway. Their fear level can rise,” said Toni Barrient, president of the Orange County Deaf Advocacy Center. “I would really like to see call boxes accessible to everyone, whatever it takes.”

In September, OCTA board members launched a program to retrofit the county’s call-box system and approved the installation of “call-connected” lights for the hearing-impaired.

The lights tell motorists when to tap on the receiver--a signal to the dispatcher that a hearing- or speech-impaired caller is on the line. A CHP officer is then sent to the call box.

The board also established a task force to assess the cost and practicality of more advanced options for the hearing-impaired, such as text-telephones, which send and receive typed messages.

Similarly, they directed OCTA staff to estimate the cost of retrofitting call boxes to accommodate people in wheelchairs. The potential work includes removing berms, curbs, debris and guardrails. Phones will have to be lowered at some sites, while more pavement may have to be added to accommodate wheelchairs at others.

OCTA officials estimate that the cost of retrofitting the system might be $3 million to $3.5 million

The studies and recommendations are scheduled to go to the board no later than September.

“OCTA is doing the right thing looking at all the options and asking us for our opinions,” said Barrient, who is on the call-box task force. “This could really make a difference.”

Orange County’s program is part of a growing effort to retrofit county call-box systems throughout the state. CalSafe, a consortium of representatives from 30 county authorities responsible for freeway safety, recently funded a study to assess options for the hearing- and speech-impaired. The report was issued in June.