Judge Must Decide How Far Sf Must Go To Improve Disabled Access

Some of San Francisco’s sidewalks, parks and recreational facilities appear to violate legal standards for accessibility by people who use wheelchairs or have other mobility impairments, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned part of the verdict by a federal judge, who ruled after a nonjury trial in 2011 that San Francisco complied with federal laws governing access for the disabled. The judge, the court said, had applied the wrong laws on access to streets and sidewalks, parks and public playgrounds, and wrongly discredited expert witnesses who found obstructions at many of those sites. The appeals court, however, upheld the judge’s conclusion that disability advocates had failed to show citywide violations that would require a complete overhaul of construction and maintenance practices affecting disability access. Kirola said she has encountered a variety of barriers to access in the city’s public facilities, including a sidewalk where her wheelchair got stuck in a tree well, a street corner without curb ramps, and three inaccessible city swimming pools. Kirola’s witnesses also described an inaccessible entrance ramp at one city park and a cracked sidewalk at another, city libraries with narrow aisles and inaccessible restrooms, and inaccessible or missing handrails at several city swimming pools. Gould said Armstrong had ruled correctly that testimony by Kirola and other disabled persons “about cracked pavement, potholes, uneven sidewalks and missing or difficult-to-use curb ramps did not establish inaccessibility at a programmatic (citywide) level.”