Baltimore City sidewalks fail ADA requirements, a group of disabled residents had to file a lawsuit to get the city to repair the sidewalks, only a small portion of the sidewalks have been repaired so far.

I’m a physical therapist, most of my patients are in what’s called the Black Butterfly, lower income areas of the city. The sidewalks there are unusable by wheelchair or other mobility device users. The city inspectors don’t enforce the ADA requirements on the smaller businesses, stores, restaurants.

The area around JHU is in better shape, still not completely accessible due to uneven and broken sidewalks that have not been repaired yet.

The state offers a supplemental public transit service for certified disabled users. The service is helpful but not reliable, my patients report delays and no show problems. Not all standard buses have working ramps. If you can find living space very close to campus you’d be better off.

There is a large, very welcoming disabled community in Baltimore. You will find a lot of support here. I’m not on Facebook, I’ve heard there are accessibility groups on Facebook that could help with finding housing.

https://www.mta.maryland.gov/mobility

https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-disability-class-action-lawsuit-20210616-fskw36o4xvarhbrzfbmdpnmu2e-story.html

Most Hopkins students use the Hopkins shuttles rather than public transportation even for things like grocery shopping and getting downtown.

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I would email them at the contact on this page and ask about your specific accessibility needs:
https://ts.jhu.edu/Shuttles/

I'm disabled/elderly. At this point I use a walker as I labor to extract a scooter/motorized chair from Medicare.

I can verify through experience verything Animanalmanac says in this thread--the sidewalks are particularly egregious. You can start across the street and then go for blocks in the gutter looking for a way back up. Ditto the ramps on buses. They'll leave you standing forever. Wheelchair/handicapped seating on buses is unevenly enforced when it's enforced at all. The Mobility buses are easy to sign up for and reasonably priced. They do have scheduling issues and no-shows, and there are times (like Sunday morning church time) when you'll wait hours.

I don't want to make it sound too forbidding. I honestly don't think it's any worse here than it is in any other city. The only thing I could add is do call ahead when going to restaurants, etc. Not all of them are accessible. Life here when you're disabled can be aggravating, but it's not some huge, miserable albatross hanging around your neck and making life miserable. Just a series of irritations.

I should add: You have to sign up for Mobility, but they actually send a car and driver to bring you downtown for your in-person interview.

Welcome to Baltimore, and I wish you success during your time at Hopkins.

Public transportation is not great. However if you live in CV by the campus you’ll find pretty much everything you need within a few blocks-under a mile. Most of the stores and restaurants in the immediate area are accessible (thinking about Saint Paul between 31-33 streets). The CV Safeway and Waverly Giant are nearby as well. Accessible housing might be hard to come by, a lot of the apartments around campus are in renovated row homes. If your budget allows I’d look at newer buildings in the area. Additionally, JHU has shuttles, though I’m not sure if they’re accessible or reliable.

Among the things that others said regarding the public resources and services and how accessible they are, I would suggest reaching out directly to JHU to see how they can accommodate your needs. Have you done so yet? When you are paying 10's of thousands of dollars to get an education there that money goes toward making sure your ability to get the education you paid for is not inhibited by any quality of life issues that may arise. I think the impression that people get when they become part of large institutions like John's Hopkins, whether it be for work or for school, is that they are privileged to be there and they should just not jeopardize that relationship by rocking the boat. In reality, this should be a symbiotic relationship between the two parties as the school wants the best outcomes for their staff and students to further the overall mission and productivity of the organization.

It seems to me that most if not all the houses I see in Charles Village have steps leading up to them, whether they are single family or apartment buildings.

As you’re disabled you get to use MTA’s mobility bus. You call them and schedule pick up. Also the regular busses are ADA accessible. My cousin who has Lupus and in a wheelchair gets around solely via public transportation and gets around independently. Hopkins spent millions over the last several years improving the accessibly around its Charles village homewood campus.

Regardless of disability, the public transportation system here is not great. I would suggest you minimize your reliance on it as much as possible by being able to take single lines to your most common destinations. This will save you many headaches.

I can’t say I’ve paid close attention to how prevalent ramps are. But I feel like the city as a whole could be doing a lot better. Lots of businesses have stairs or thresholds of some kind.

Strangely, the city itself is making improvements by replacing nasty sidewalk sections. There used to be some pretty extreme sidewalks that were a hazard but many of those have been tamed. And sidewalks by intersections are much better with the ramps to street level. I say this is strange because normally the city is dogshit terrible at everything it does, but not here. I won’t say that it’s the most friendly city for you but progress seems steadily moving in the right direction.

This city and the ADA exist in two different dimensions. Stick to the county perimeters if you need to drive the scooter to accomplish everything survival dependent, like getting food. There are horrible stretches of the city they call "Food Deserts". We used to have a neat old tradition where a group called "Arabbers" would cart fresh vegetables and other goods by a horse drawn cart. We could use that back in some areas, it was the only way many disabled city residents could get decent food. Now those alleys are filled with ramen noodle packs and it really makes me wonder how many people in the city are living off cheap and salty ramen.

I am in a wheelchair and even in the counties, people around here will yell at you to hurry up in the grocery line. So, a 300 year old city with severely lacking public transit and large areas of food deserts isn't a great choice for someone completely wheelchair bound. Public transit pretty much acts like disabled people don't exist, there are some very basic state services to help transport disabled around but it's always a major problem to deal with. You're better off calling a transport company with a wheelchair van. Going downtown for anything like hospital or official business is a complete nightmare in a wheelchair.

It's been getting worse the past 5 years, not better. Be very careful about selecting where you're going to live. Make sure to research the hell out of every aspect, especially be careful of the real estate related scams. Like random people renting you someone else's house while they are out of town, or buying a nice little rowhome only to find out some 86 year old widow in new jersey owns the "ground rent" rights and it's a headache entirely central to Baltimore.

Make sure you understand this outdated bullshit concept and the fact that no matter how hard you check, someone may secretly own the rights to a property that has been fully legally and correctly sold to you and you own nothing until it's sorted. There have been some nasty situations evolve from this bullshit, and it's pretty much unique to this city. https://www.peoples-law.org/understanding-ground-rent-maryland

Though I myself am not disabled, I do have a rough idea about what makes a place more or less accessible—and Baltimore may be the least accessible major American city I’ve been in. Like, it’s possible the city collectively actually hates users of wheelchairs.

It’s been sued over its sidewalks, which are badly broken, often unreasonably narrow (both by design and due to stoops and tree boxes); consistently blocked by garbage cans, scooters, etc.; poorly lit; and feature things like the occasional 18” curb.

People also seem to routinely park in front of curb ramps. Disabled parking spaces are limited and often inconvenient; and requests for reserved parking don’t seem to be anyone’s priority. Frankly, nobody should cross the street thinking drivers will notice them.

Also, while I’m sure the are accessible housing options, my guess is the vast majority of homes aren’t just not accessible, but can’t even be made accessible without considerable expense.

As for amenities, accessibility seems like an add-on/afterthought at many restaurants, and probably not even an afterthought when it comes to a lot of the parks and trails.

This isn’t to say you can’t find a nicely accessible niche, just that you really should really spend a few days deciding whether the amount of friction you’re likely to encounter on a daily basis is too much for your liking.

I'm a caregiver for three different women, two of whom rely on public transportation in the area. Feel free to DM me and I may be able to connect you with them. They all use power chairs, so they'll have a similar experience.

I'm not disabled but I use an electric unicycle to get around the city so I tend to pay a lot of attention to where their are steps.

For the most part sidewalks have ramps so you can get on and off them. There are occasional ones where they don't though. This mostly happens in residential neighborhoods where someone has built a driveway that cuts through a sidewalk. I would say the larger issue is how shitty our sidewalks are. Many have large bumps in them due to cracks and root growth. They also have a stupid habit of putting street signs in the middle of sidewalks which can make them hard or impossible to use, some are made so narrow by this that they are hard to just walk on.

Luckily if you're in Charles Village proper most of the sidewalks are pretty good. We've actually got some of the widest sidewalks in the city, especially for a more residential neighborhood. The bad sidewalks can mostly be avoided once you know where they are. Even our park can be accessed by ramp.

I've never taken a city bus but the circulators all seem to be wheelchair accessible.

The bad news is the houses are mostly row homes with steps. So you'll want to live in one of the apartment buildings. I have no idea how accessible they are, but I'm sure the newer buildings have to meet ADA standards. So with that in mind you might want to look at Remington Row as it's new construction.

Just stopping in to mention that I see a lot of mobility scooter traffic in the bike lanes on Maryland Ave, since i they might not jump out as an accessibility resource

Public transit is not great but as mentioned JHU has a pretty good shuttle system which should at least take you to everything in a certain radius. For housing you will find a lot of rowhomes and in CV I've noticed they often have stairs to walk up to the entrance. I've however seen plenty of accessible apartment buildings, but they'll probably be more expensive than the less accessible options.

I would definitely reach out to JHU's Housing Office because they will probably know the best accessible housing options in the area and can give you an idea of what's available. There are also some Facebook groups of people who are looking for roommates or sublets, just search up JHU Housing and you can browse through what people are posting- they often will also post about what places/landlords to avoid lol.

Baltimore has its ups and downs but I genuinely enjoyed my time living there. It has a rich history and culture and if you have any interest in art and anything quirky you'll have a great time. The food scene is also amazing! I hope you're able to find all the information you need and if you end up in Baltimore, I hope you really love it!

The public transportation in Baltimore is seriously lacking compared to other cities, so even without the accessibility issue, relying on that will be tough. I grew up outside DC and the metro is very convenient and accessible. Also, the museums are free and ADA compliant. DC is an hour away from Baltimore, but it might make a more convenient base for you, if that’s at all feasible

On the other hand, if you were to live in Hampden or Wyman Park, you’d be close to a lot of restaurants and shops and near the Homewood campus and might not really need to use public transportation that often. I see JHU shuttle bus stops everywhere around here. I lived in an apartment building near JHU called Hopkins House and it was a pretty nice experience. It’s a building from the 60s with elevators and each apartment has a balcony.

Charles Village is even closer to JHU but I lived in the southern part of CV for a year and the crime was more than I could take (and I’ve lived in a bunch of other cities). It may have improved since then.

Also have a look at the Rotunda—it’s a recently redeveloped shopping center not too far from JHU and seems like it’s very accessible. There’s an organic grocery store, some restaurants, a new movie theater is opening. I would think there’d be JHU shuttles there very often.

So to summarize: getting around Baltimore without a car is tough for everyone, but if you choose a neighborhood that you like, you may not need or want to go anywhere else all that often.

I'm sorry to say, you are going to have a pretty hard time in Baltimore. You probably want to consider someplace directly adjacent to the university. Something that hasn't been mentioned here yet is how things get in bad weather. Be prepared for a lot of standing water when it rains (poor drainage, large deep puddles, etc.). Snow removal and salting isn't that great either. The closer you are to campus, the better; even 3 or 4 blocks after a snow may be impassable. Also, there are tons of potholes, poorly patched roads and uneven sidewalks. There are a few buildings directly in the JHU-HW neighborhood that would probably be your best choice.

Because of the age of many of the buildings, you will find that many commercial establishments will be inconvenient; e.g. one or two steps to enter or just inside, narrow entries, etc.

Hampden is about 1-1.5 miles away. That's a great neighborhood for bars/restaurants if that's within your range. Charles Village also has quite a few cool spots.

You will almost certainly find that locals in those neighborhoods do not have an issue with individuals with disabilities and are very open minded/welcoming.

From a sidewalk accessibility standpoint it’s not great. Sidewalks can be very uneven and not always marked appropriately as well as shrink to impractically small size near curbs/stoops/planters in certain neighborhoods or street sections. I have noticed that a lot of the neighborhood corner stores where I am located are walk-up (no stoop or single/double entrance step) but can be small/tight inside for maneuvering. I do not have much info on public transportation and ease of use there.

I have not found the housing around Hopkins (CV and Hampden) or even the Homewood campus to be particularly accessibility friendly. It was only when
a prospective student visited my academic building on the Homewood campus that I realized the ramps and elevators were laid out such that you'd have to travel in the least efficient way possible to get around. That said I am sure you can figure out a way to negotiate routes to get around. Wish it were better.