Court Orders Chicago Make Thousands Of Intersections Safer For Blind

A federal judge has ordered the city of Chicago to install costly new equipment at thousands of intersections across the city to make the intersections safer and more accessible for pedestrians who are blind or have limited vision.

On May 29, U.S. District Judge Elaine E. Bucklo issued an order establishing a so-called “remedial plan” under which the city would be obligated to install “accessible pedestrian signals,” or APS devices, at about 71% of the city’s signalized intersections in the next 10 years.

APS devices emit sounds and vibrate a tactile button, enabling pedestrians to hear the status of the Walk and Don’t Walk signs to know whether it may be safe to cross the street.

The order comes as the latest step to resolve a class action lawsuit brought against the city of Chicago by advocates for the blind.

In 2019, the American Council for the Blind of Metropolitan Chicago, together with attorneys from the Disability Rights Advocates organization and the Proskauer Rose firm, sued the city in federal court. The lawsuit accused the city of discriminating against the blind, in violation of federal disability access laws.

The lawsuit asserted, at the time it was filed in 2019, only 11 out of more than 2,800 signalized intersections in Chicago included such APS devices. The city’s 2012 public pedestrian plan, which cited a primary goal of eliminating pedestrian fatalities by 2022, included intent to install APS devices at every new traffic signal starting in 2016. By 2019, only one of 39 newly signalized crossings were equipped with APS, the lawsuit noted.