BOSTON -- Producing Team 5's "Paving the Way" gave me great insight into what it's like for the disabled to get around the city. Brick is everywhere, in keeping with historic Boston.

When a job calls for brick, those old-style, newly manufactured bricks called Boston pavers go in. The city says they're a perfect architectural fit. But the mobility-impaired find them bumpy, irregular and difficult to travel on.

John Kelly is a quadriplegic. He has been in a wheelchair for over 20 years. Bricks, he tells us, give him motion sickness, even occasional spasms.

Liz Casey, also in a wheelchair, has the same experience. What able-bodied person would ever even think about bricks as obstacles? Now I find myself looking for displaced or out-of-kilter bricks or sloped sidewalks.

There are no simple solutions. The city says Boston pavers are part of the cityscape. Kelly says there are smoother, "wire cut" bricks available. Mike Galvin, Boston's chief of basic city services, says they use those when they can. Right now, they're being installed on a section of Atlantic avenue.

The more significant aspect of this story to me is how two people with such severe disabilities have the vigor and commitment to effect change. Kelly fought to get the city to pull some particularly damaged bricks off of Huntington Avenue. Casey wants people in her Roslindale Square neighborhood to ponder what it's like to pass so many storefronts that are inaccessible. A beautiful new patio is renovated with brick; a restaurant deck has no ramp; slate steps lead to stores. These are all violations of the American Disabilities Act that requires access for all.

These activists for the disabled don't expect miracles, only awareness. They certainly made me look at city streets and neighborhoods differently. A new sidewalk in my town was paved with concrete and bordered with brick. That's a design John Kelly would love to see everywhere.

My town took the time to do it right, something I wouldn't have even noticed before! Casey says universal access is not just for the wheelchair-bound, the cane users or the visually impaired. They are for aging parents and, one day, all the baby boomers who might develop mobility issues of their own.

It's a mindset that's altered one step at a time, by these courageous citizens.

Lynn Kellermann Team 5 Producer