WHEREAS, The Americans With Disabilities Act requires reasonable accommodations be provided all of our citizens in the benefits and services offered by the City of Philadelphia; and
WHEREAS, The City of Philadelphia has deemed it necessary for the sidewalks to be handicapped accessible by providing for the expenditure of money, to create sidewalk cutouts; and
WHEREAS, Many of the sidewalk cutouts in Center City are structurally defective resulting in poor or no drainage of water, thus resulting in a puddle of standing water at the bottom of the cutout; and
WHEREAS, The presence of a puddle of standing water at the bottom of the sidewalk cutout is dangerous for both the disabled person, and the able bodied person who unsuspectingly walks and slips on ice or other debris camouflaged by the standing water; and
WHEREAS, The gradient of the sidewalk cutouts is to be such that the slope of the cutout results in a gradual decline of the sidewalk such that puddles of water do not accumulate; and
WHEREAS, An examination of all of the sidewalk cutouts throughout the City must be made to determine whether or not they are defective; and
WHEREAS, Sidewalk cutouts shown to be defective must be corrected; now therefore
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That Council hereby authorizes City Council's Committee on Streets and Services to investigate why the sidewalk cutouts throughout Center City are not adequately draining and to investigate whether or not there are other locations throughout the City where the sidewalk cutouts are structurally defective; and to determine how the problem of the sidewalk cutouts can be corrected and to have them corrected.
End