DC Council of the Blind v. District of Columbia

In May 2025, DRA, Relman Colfax PLLC, and The Washington Lawyers’ Committee filed a critical public safety class action lawsuit against the District of Columbia on behalf of the DC Council of the Blind (DCCB) and five named plaintiffs.

The complaint highlights systemic barriers that prevent blind and low vision pedestrians from safely crossing the vast majority of signalized intersections in the District, depriving them of equal participation in public life. Read the complaint.

While the District has installed visual pedestrian signals at more than 1,600 intersections to ensure the safety of its sighted pedestrians, only a fraction of those intersections have devices with auditory, tactile, and vibrotactile cues—Accessible Pedestrian Signals (APS)—to make them accessible to blind pedestrians. Equally problematic, the modest number of signals equipped with APS are plagued by installation and maintenance issues.

The class action lawsuit presents claims on behalf of people with disabilities who—in the absence of APS—have encountered significant challenges in navigating one of the nation’s most walkable cities. Without APS, tens of thousands of blind pedestrians who live in, work in, or visit the District are left to guess whether it is safe to cross the street.

In addition to endangering blind pedestrians, these experiences demean them by compromising their ability to travel through the District safely and independently, and isolate them from work, education, recreation, religious services, cultural events, and shopping. When blind pedestrians must spend extra time or money to navigate the District without functional APS, they are paying a “blindness tax” to participate fully in daily activities.

Through this class action, plaintiffs are seeking swift and comprehensive injunctive relief on behalf of themselves and all blind pedestrians who have been discriminatorily denied the benefits of the District’s pedestrian signals program. 

With the District planning to unveil a new Vision Zero Action Plan in 2025 and having already announced a new initiative in 2025 to curb traffic deaths, it is now imperative to ensure accessibility is prioritized in every part of the process, to avoid repeating or duplicating efforts down the road.