But some blind and visually impaired people say there’s good reason for the apparent mistake
ID: A train at o train stop with a building in the background.
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Cathy McAdam is blind and has been reading braille since she was four. Despite her lifetime of experience, she’s never encountered upside-down braille signs like the ones along the Detroit QLine.
The signs have the name of each QLine stop in English text with accompanying braille to assist the blind and visually impaired. However, they were installed so that both the braille and English are inverted at each of the 12 QLine stations.
“The braille is correct, it’s just upside down,” McAdam tells us on a snowy November morning at the QLine. “I’m 76, so I know my braille.”
McAdam still doesn’t believe the upside down signs are as commonplace as the NFB of Michigan is making it seem.
McAdam is a disability advocate with Detroit Disability Power along with her partner Michael Patten, who is visually impaired. Patten is the former Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) program manager with the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART).