The Center of Legal Assistance for Persons with Disabilities calls on the local public authorities of Chisinau to obey the accessibility norms when repairing the streets Alecsandri, Negruzzi and Stefan cel Mare. The Center’s representative Vitalie Mester, in a news conference at IPN, said a part of their demands concerning the modification of the technical project were accepted by the authorities, while others were rejected as groundless.
The Center’s jurist Elena Stajila said the requirements concerning the installation of stoplights with sound and tactile paving near crosswalks weren’t accepted. “The authorities explained that tactile paving is not possible because, when the project was worked out, there was no national standard that would regulate tactile paving, type of marking and utilization method. As to traffic lights, they said the traffic police didn’t impose particular conditions concerning these when the project was designed,” stated the jurist.
The Center of Legal Assistance for Persons with Disabilities filed an application to the National Standardization Institute, asking to that the international standards on accessibility should be implemented at national level. The application was accepted. Afterward, the Center formulated a preliminary request to the municipal authorities responsible for the designing and execution of building works on the streets V. Alecsandri and C. Negruzzi. This was yet ignored and the Center thus filed a lawsuit.
On September 19, 2016, the Buiucani Court obliged the General Public Transport and Communications Division and the Institute “Chisinauproiect” to start making the asked changes to the street repair projects, including those concerning tactile paving. But this hasn’t been yet done, according to the representatives of the Center.
If the streets are repaired without meeting these accessibility conditions, the putting right of the committed mistakes will cost much more, stated Elena Stajila, adding the problem of street accessibility concerns not only the persons with disability, but everyone.
