Boston officials will make City Hall Plaza in Government Center more accessible to physically disabled patrons after the Architectural Access Board gave the city a $627,000 fine in 2004, state and city officials said.
Kristen McCosh, the commissioner for the city’s Commission for Persons with Disabilities, said there will be a five-foot wide access route, beginning at the Washington Mall entrance on Court Street.
The path will lead to a ramp and the front steps of City Hall, McCosh said, so people will not have to traverse the uneven brick.
McCosh said the plan will be “a step in the right direction for the City of Boston in welcoming people with disabilities into City Hall.”
The city gets complaints all the time about the brick sidewalks, McCosh said, and it works very closely with historical commissions and the public works department.
McCosh said the accessible path of travel is really a result of a number of agencies coming together, including the AAB, the disability commission and the Boston community.
Thomas Hopkins, the executive director of the state’s AAB, said this project proposal was made in response to a $627,000 fine given to the City of Boston by the AAB.
A man named John Kelly was the original complainant in 2004, bringing attention to an accessibility problem with Huntington Avenue, Hopkins said.
The bricks there will be replaced with either red asphalt or red concrete, Hopkins said.
The AAB allowed the city to keep half of the money to fix Huntington Avenue and the rest was allocated to the disability commission to meet other complaints or give attention to other problem areas, such as Boston’s City Hall Plaza, Hopkins said.
The city brought together advocates in the community and different disability nonprofit agencies to get input on the best way to use the money, he said. Through a community process, the plan for an accessible path onto City Hall Plaza was chosen.
Hopkins said the type of brick currently used on the plaza and various other locations around Boston is called “Boston City Hall Paver.”
The bricks are manufactured specifically to look distressed and broken for “an historic, ‘this is a hundred-year-old sidewalk’ feel,’ ” he said.
“Historians love the brick, but it’s really not practical, not even for able-bodied people,” Hopkins said.
In an attempt to compromise with brick lovers, alternatives to City Hall Paver includes concrete sidewalk with a brick trimming and “wire-cut” brick, which are all purposefully cut with the exact same dimensions to increase smoothness, Hopkins said.
The Public Facilities Department issued an invitation for bids in search for a construction company to carry out the plan. The bids are due on March 1.
The construction on City Hall Plaza, McCosh said, is set to begin in April and will finish by July.
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I lived in Boston for 25+ years, and all I can say is “It’s about time!!!!!”
Thank you, John Kelly, for your activism and persistence.
It’s not only the city that needs to be held accountable to its citizens, but all the agencies and boards that are appointed to look out for them.