Lancaster City is fighting an uphill battle.

A year after facing a lawsuit filed by three residents with disabilities over the city's failure to install wheelchair ramps at intersection sidewalks, city officials now must go back and rebuild the ramps it has already installed.

Over the next eight to 10 weeks, city public works crews will be evaluating each of the nearly 1,700 curb ramps that have been installed in recent years to see if they comply with the current regulations of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.

Those ramps did comply with federal regulations when they were installed, said Public Works Director Charlotte Katzenmoyer, but the law has been changed and so have the regulations.

Unlike other laws, in which existing situations are accepted or "grandfathered," the revisions to the 1992 ADA law require ramps to be updated to the current regulations, she said.

The price tag to the city: as much as $4 million.

That amount, included in the city's capital budget and slated to be funded by a pending bond issue, is the "worst-case scenario," Katzenmoyer emphasized. The cost may be less, depending on the changes that need to be made to bring existing ramps into current compliance.

The changes are being prompted by the federal lawsuit filed by three local individuals with physical disabilities. Along with calling on the city to bring existing ramps into compliance, the suit also seeks to have the city install ramps which should have been built since the law was passed in 1992.

Under a federal ruling from another lawsuit, filed in Philadelphia, the city is required to install the ramps as it repaves streets. Under that rule, Lancaster should have built 492 ramps between the time the law was enacted and when the first ramps were installed here in 2003.

Katzenmoyer said that under a settlement of that portion of the lawsuit with the three local plaintiffs, the city has until the end of 2009 to build the ramps that should have been built.

Another $2.3 million is included in the capital budget for that expense.

Once the cost and time needed to modify existing ramps are known, the city will go back to the plaintiffs with a request for more time.

Disabled-rights activist Philip Keller, one of the plaintiffs, declined to comment on the city ramps on Wednesday, citing the still-pending litigation.

The city still has about 1,100 ramps that have not been built, Katzenmoyer said.

Common modifications that will need to be made are the elimination of a lip where the ramp meets the street pavement and the addition of a four-foot flat "landing" behind the ramp. That space is now required to allow wheelchair users to turn around without working against a slope, she said.

The costs associated with these changes will be estimated by an ADA compliance consultant. The work will later be done by a contract company, Katzenmoyer said. She declined to speculate how much the changes will cost, but said it will vary widely depending on what is required.

Mayor Rick Gray said he supports the intent of the law to make public facilities accessible to people who have physical disabilities.

But he believes the city and towns are facing an unfair burden.

"To an extent, I feel like we're being penalized for this," Gray said of the ADA rules.

"We have sidewalks, therefore we have to make them accessible. Other municipalities don't have sidewalks, so they don't have an accessibility issue," he noted, citing more wealthy suburban townships.

Gray said he has asked Congressman Joe Pitts to find federal funding to comply with the federal regulations.

"It is one of those things that well-meaning people on the federal level pass things that affect us, and where do we get the money," Gray said. "Regulations are cheap. Implementation is expensive."

Pitts' press secretary, Skip Brown, said Wednesday that the ADA regulations are indeed an unfunded mandate. Pitts' office found no federal money specifically available to help cities comply.

The city could use, and has used, federal Community Development Block Grant funds, but that pot of money has been shrinking by 10 percent annually in recent years.

Katzenmoyer said she hopes the city can begin modifying the existing ramps this year.

The city's capital budget, which would fund the changes, is slated to come before City Council next week. A vote on the spending is expected March 13.

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