I feel for the author. When I was in college, I ran into a similar issue. I'm not in a wheelchair, but one of my oldest friends from childhood is wheelchair-bound. Every day or two we would go eat lunch or dinner down the street from campus. The main intersection between campus and where all the fast food joints were was a busy, busy intersection with red lights. There were no ramps. To get across the intersection, she would have to go down the street to someone's driveway, wait for a chance to cross, then cross the street with traffic coming in both directions. In the dark, this was absolutely terrifying.

After one particularly harrowing crossing, I insisted that she call the City and ask about what they could do. She just brushed me off, saying that they wouldn't care. I pushed her and pushed her, but she wouldn't do anything.

So I called City Hall the next day, and I said, "Hi, I'm Jemaclus. I'm in a wheelchair and attend the university. There's no wheelchair ramp at the intersection of 1st and Main, so I have to go down the street and cross from someone's driveway. Is there anything we can do to fix this?" (Yes, I made a white lie.)

The lady snapped into action immediately. "Don't you worry. I've got this," she said.

The very next day, construction workers were putting in an accessible ramp on the corner, and four days later, my friend and I were able to safely and securely cross the intersection.

I have two hypotheses that are not mutually exclusive about what happened:

1. The City probably has a budget allocated to ADA compliance or infrastructure improvements or something. It's also probably a use-it-or-lose-it situation. If you call and point out something, they're HAPPY to do it, because otherwise they lose the money next year.

2. The City definitely doesn't want to be sued for ADA non-compliance, and they will probably move with all haste toward a reasonable solution. In this case, it was a no-brainer: a wheelchair-accessible ramp at a busy intersection with tons of pedestrians.

I would encourage anyone who runs into these kinds of problems in public areas (the author's problem was actually private property, so...) to actually call the City Hall and politely inform them of the problem, explain how it's dangerous, and ask how "we" can fix it. In all likelihood, they will probably respond immediately and in a positive fashion due to the above reasons. It might not happen overnight like mine did, but eventually they'll want to cover their asses from an ADA lawsuit.

For the record, my backup plan would have been a letter to the editor of the local paper, and then talking to an attorney.