DC lawsuit seeks safer street crossings for blind pedestrians

Blind DC residents sue over pedestrian crosswalks

Blind residents say the District has not done enough to make pedestrian walkways safe for blind people.

WASHINGTON - Three leading civil rights organizations have filed a class action lawsuit against the District of Columbia after they say blind pedestrians are unable to safely cross the majority of signalized intersections in the city.

Lawsuit challenges accessibility

What we know:

Disability Rights Advocates, Relman Colfax PLLC, and The Washington Lawyers’ Committee brought the lawsuit on behalf of the DC Council of the Blind (DCCB) and five named plaintiffs.

Despite installing visual pedestrian signals at more than 1,600 intersections, the District has failed to equip most with Accessible Pedestrian Signals (APS), the complaint says.

"There’s a lot of blind people that want to get out and they want to. We have a beautiful city in DC. We have good public transportation. But we also need to be able to cross the street to get to the bus stops. We need to be able to cross the street to get to the subway stations," said DC Council of the Blind President Rev. Raymond Raysor.

Raysor is a lifelong DC resident. He uses a guide dog because — for him — it’s too dangerous to cross the street alone.
 

The DC Council of the Blind point to Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Vision Zero initiative — launched back in 2015 — which aimed to eliminate pedestrian traffic deaths by last year.

And while the city has added high-visibility crosswalks, bus-only traffic signals, and visual signal timing at over 270 intersections — the plaintiffs say none of that helps them get across safely.

The lawsuit says only a small percentage of intersections have accessible pedestrian signals — and even those are often broken or programmed incorrectly.
They’re claiming the city is violating federal disability law by making it harder — and more dangerous — for blind residents to get around.

Advocates demand safer crossings

This leaves blind pedestrians without essential touch and vibration signals needed to safely navigate the intersections, the lawsuit says.

It also alleges that blind pedestrians are forced to spend extra time or money navigating non-APS intersections, effectively imposing a "blindness tax" on them.

The challengers aren’t asking for money — they’re asking for an injunction to force the city to install more accessible pedestrian signals and to make sure the ones already in place are actually working.

Read the complaint online.