Boston Commission for Persons with Disabilities's Continues Work on 21st Anniversary of American Disabilities Act

Boston has celebrated a lot of things in recent years, but until Tuesday, the city had never celebrated the Americans with Disabilities Act.

At , joined the and members of Boston’s disabled community to celebrate the 21^st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

“The City of Boston is diverse in many ways and welcomes people of all abilities,” said Menino. “Over the past several years, we have taken great steps towards making Boston a friendlier city for all of our residents and visitors. While I recognize how far we still have to go, today provides a great opportunity for families to come and celebrate how far we’ve come over the past 21 years.”          

Since Disabilities Commissioner Kristen McCosh was appointed in October 2010, she has been working to have the Commission work more with the community. Thus an active nine-member Disability Advisory Board, made up of residents in different neighborhoods, was established.

This past spring the City hosted an event for residents, advocates and disability agencies to gather input and ideas on how to improve accessibility and inclusion priorities in Boston.

During the past two years Boston has worked to make significant improvements to make its roads more accessible and address various concerns of the disability community including, by doing the following, according to City officials:

• A program allocating $15 million to increase pedestrian access to bring curb cuts into ADA compliance.
• Changes to city contracts and approvals to ensure ADA compliance on the construction of streets and sidewalks.
• The training of all city inspectors on rules and regulations for maintaining access to those with disabilities during any construction.
• The establishment of the nine-member volunteer Disability Commission to advise the City of Boston on policies concerning the disabled.
• Increasing access at approximately 100 polling places throughout the City.
• The Disability Commission’s “Accessible Path to City Hall” to reconstruct the ramp to City Hall.
• A program between advocates and the Boston Police Department to retrain taxi drivers on how they deal with disabled passengers comprising a sting operation to check compliance.
• Currently developing an accessible component to the  to launch in the fall.

For more information on the Commission for Persons with Disabilities, check out the City's website here.