Call Boxes

Now that Carol Anne Wright and the Western Law Center for Disability Rights have won their class-action suit about the accessibility of freeway call boxes (May 14), I wonder if perhaps common sense has not been sacrificed to political agenda. Wouldn’t it be much better to simply provide disabled drivers with emergency-only cell phones?

The thought of a wheelchair-bound person rolling up the freeway to the nearest call box and negotiating whatever makeshift access Caltrans has cobbled together to satisfy the lawsuit seems like a completely unsatisfactory solution to a very real problem. The thought of Caltrans road crews tying up traffic for years to provide this access to 4,200 call boxes is horrifying. It would seem that $11 million could buy a lot of cell phones that would be useful for any and all emergencies.

JOHN GILMAN

Burbank