Chicago Ordered to Install Thousands of APS

By Ileana Garnand, Digital Editor

Accessibility advocates are utilizing lawsuits to make some of America’s largest cities safer for all pedestrians, with Chicago becoming the most recent site of change.

In June, a federal district court ordered the city to install thousands of Accessible Pedestrian Signals (APS) over the next decade, following years of activism from the local blind community. 

“Blind people and people with disabilities travel all around the city, and that's something that I think people need to realize,” plaintiff Ray Campbell said. “We're here. We want to travel independently, and the better that the pedestrian environment is, the better for everyone.”

APS are devices attached to crosswalks that present safety information like “Walk” and “Don’t Walk” in audible and vibrotactile formats for blind, low vision and deafblind pedestrians. They often have an integrated speaker and a push button.

Chicago currently has around 85 road crossings with APS — equaling 3% of the over 2,800 signalized intersections in the city, according to nonprofit legal center Disability Rights Advocates.  

In September 2019, the organization filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of the American Council of the Blind of Metropolitan Chicago and three individual plaintiffs, all of whom are members of the council.

Six years later, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois found Chicago in violation of federal disability rights laws and issued a remedial order to ensure “meaningful access to [the city’s] network of pedestrian signals.”

The court-ordered plan to install thousands of APS in Chicago highlights a growing movement to redesign American streets for safety and equity. These devices, which provide audible and tactile cues to guide blind and low-vision pedestrians, underscore the broader challenge cities face in making infrastructure accessible. As lawsuits in other major cities push governments to act, advocates say the fight isn’t just about compliance with disability rights laws but about rethinking urban design so all pedestrians—regardless of ability—can navigate city streets safely.

Increasing Inaccessibility in Chicago’s Streets

“I really can't imagine a sighted person going across a busy street, either walking or in a car, without a traffic light,” plaintiff Ann Brash said. “Blind people have been expected to do that forever and it's just not reasonable to assume that we could do that safely.”

Brash worked in Chicago for 45 years, navigating a commute with no APS. In 2017, she was almost hit by a bus while crossing an intersection. 

Two passersby pulled Brash out of the road just in time, but her cane was struck and split in half.

“It was a really close call,” Brash said. 

Navigating Chicago’s streets as a visually impaired pedestrian has become more difficult over the years, according to the plaintiffs. 

“The city of Chicago has lots of things which make a lot of noise, trains and people and everything,” Brash said. “It's blocking the cues that we use to cross the street. It just gets very, very difficult to cross.”

Intersections near the city’s elevated train tracks are particularly challenging because of the noise levels.

The plaintiffs said they can also no longer rely on safely crossing a street when parallel traffic is moving because drivers may turn right at a red light or left at a green light.

Leading Pedestrian Intervals, meant to increase safety in these situations, give people a few seconds head start before these oncoming vehicles are allowed to turn. However, these signals make crossings more difficult for visually impaired pedestrians when they lack accessible features.

“If you're listening to the traffic, you're missing part of the light already,” plaintiff Maureen Heneghan said.

While Chicago already had some APS, not all of them worked well, according to the complainants. 

“Me and another plaintiff went with one of our lawyers to look at one of the signals,” Heneghan said. “The volume was very low, and it wasn't really even in the right place.”

Lawsuits from New York to Chicago

In June 2018, Disability Rights Advocates filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of the American Council of the Blind of New York, asserting New York City violated federal law by failing to systematically implement APS at intersections.  

The case inspired a similar suit halfway across the country, at another chapter of the American Council of the Blind.

“I decided I needed to join this case because it's about time to stop sitting on the sidelines and being patted on the head and promised that we're going to get something,” Chicago plaintiff and chapter president Ray Campbell said. “It's time to sue some people.”

Both cases were successful. 

Under the court order, Chicago must install APS at least 71% of signalized intersections that have pedestrian signals over the next decade. The city then has another five years to equip the rest of its intersections with APS, unless it can demonstrate that blind pedestrians have meaningful access to the pedestrian grid.

The court established benchmarks for how many APS need to be installed per year, as well as guidelines for proper installation and upkeep.

“Would I like to see it done faster? Yes,” Campbell said. “The reality is, there are over 2,000 signalized intersections in the city of Chicago. It's not going to happen tomorrow. I feel like it's by about the best agreement we could get.”

The city also is required to work with the blind community on the project. The APS Community Advisory Committee will consult individuals, advocacy organizations and Certified Orientation and Mobility Specialists.

Community members will be able to request APS to be installed at specific intersections and the city is required to prioritize the most dangerous crossings first.

The court order also includes a maintenance clause so people can report APS that need to be fixed. The city is required to make the repairs promptly. 

“All we're asking for is to have the same information crossing streets as sighted people have,” Heneghan said. “We are just asking for the accessible pedestrian signals.”

Designing Effective APS

APS benefit every pedestrian, regardless of ability, by clarifying when to cross on a specific street.

However, the simple presence of APS systems does not make roads immediately safer for pedestrians. The technology needs to be designed and installed correctly.

Multiple transportation organizations have developed related guidelines, including the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP).

David Harkey, now president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, previously studied APS for NCHRP while at the University of North Carolina’s Highway Safety Research Center.

The researchers worked with accessibility advocates and mobility instructors for the visually impaired to determine which types of signals worked best. 

They found APS need certain features to best serve all types of pedestrians. This includes tactile information that deaf-blind people can touch. 

“The signal might vibrate in some way to let you know whether it's safe to cross or it might have some sort of Braille features that you could access,” Harkey said.

Noise adjustment capabilities also are helpful because the ambient noise at an intersection can change depending on the time of day, Harkey said. This ensures APS are loud enough during peak traffic times but not too noisy in the late evening or early morning.

If APS are placed too far back from the intersection, pedestrians may not be able to hear them. The push button is also sometimes located far from the crosswalk, requiring visually impaired pedestrians to “hunt for it,” Harkey said.

“A challenging part of this wasn't just the device itself, it was also the location of that device,” he said. “You needed to place the accessible pedestrian signals in a place where they were actually accessible.”

Investing in Safety

Without a court order, like in New York and Chicago, cities may put off installing APS because of the cost.

“In some cases, you had to run new wiring, you had to put in new hardware,” Harkey said. “You might have to tear up the sidewalk, so it wasn't a cheap proposition. That was one of the biggest challenges for a lot of communities.”

He suggested cities take advantage of already-scheduled intersection maintenance projects to make their roads more accessible. For example, some communities installed APS when they had to construct curb ramps required by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“If you're going to dig up the sidewalk for other reasons or you're going to reconfigure this intersection for other reasons, while you're there, take the time to put accessible pedestrian signals in the right locations and install the right equipment,” Harkey said.

Curb ramps also are key features for visually impaired pedestrians. To be accessible, crosswalks should have directional ramps with a raised curb in between to help pedestrians determine each path’s location.

Tactile features at the bottom of the curb ramp, like bumps or lines in the concrete, also are important to let pedestrians know where the road begins.

“We certainly are not interested in taking anything away from people in wheelchairs, but when they make (the curb) exactly level with the street, it's very difficult to tell when we actually are walking into traffic,” Brash said. 

Signaling Other Cities

As Chicago prepares to install thousands of APS, accessibility advocates urge the rest of the country to follow suit. 

“Cities really need to consider all pedestrians when they are installing signals and traffic control systems,” Campbell said. “You just need to spend the money installing these things, and we'll all be better off in the end.”

In May, Disability Rights Advocates filed a similar complaint in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the DC Council of the Blind. The lawsuit alleges “only a fraction” of the city’s intersections have APS and those that do are compromised by installation and maintenance issues.

The nonprofit is also representing four Chicagoland residents with mobility disabilities in a class action lawsuit filed against Chicago in September alleging failures to make sidewalks, curb ramps and other public pedestrian rights of way accessible.

“When you have your first and your third-largest cities in the country that have basically been told by a court, ‘you got to do this,’ hopefully it'll send a message that we're not playing around,” Campbell said. “It's just time to get out there and get it done.” RB