The no-access road
A stranger and I just helped a disabled lady in a motorized scooter mount the inaccessible curb adjoining the treatment center for disabled people in wheelchairs and scooters.
The medical center has been there for probably thirty years. And for probably thirty years, the inaccessible curb has barred the way for people seeking treatment.
Thirty years.
I’m no statistician, but I’ll estimate that the little scene we three strangers just performed outside the medical facility has been reenacted at least a million times.
The facility is located between Second and First Avenues. An access road to an on-ramp to the Queens Midtown Tunnel divides the street in half. To get to the facility, you must traverse the access road.
An incomprehensible three-way traffic light controls the flow of people and cars across the T-shaped intersection. At least, in theory, it controls the flow. In practice, cars are always pouring into the access road. In fact, parents and nannies continually push prams into the access road in defiance of the constantly oncoming traffic. Besides medical facilities for the disabled, the half-block houses a huge and busy pediatric office; and there is a children’s playground just the other side of the center.
The lady somehow got her scooter down into the access road during the momentary interval when it was okay for pedestrians to cross.
She got to the other side and discovered there was no ramp up.
She began driving her scooter backwards and forwards in the road, searching for a ramp.
No ramp.
Cars began heading toward her.
A man and I walked over to her. She asked for help and we did our best, while the cars edged to the left of her.
How many people in wheelchairs cross this road day and night?
Have any died?
Filed under: Accessibility, glamorous
38 Responses to “The no-access road”
Comments off.
An allegory for web standards in 2038?
It’s amazing, isn’t it. In 1997, an ill-advised encounter with a jetski left me in a wheelchair for a week, and on crutches for the rest of the year. At least I live in the city, I thought, where all the curbs have ramps to allow easy wheelchair access.
Guess what? It is not physically possible to wheel yourself up a curb that’s eased to a 45 degree angle. And it’s frighteningly dangerous to wheel yourself down. I tried twice: the first time I fell out, and the second time I careened uncontrollably into the intersection of Greenwich Avenue, West 11th street, and Seventh Ave. (I should add that nobody thought to help me.)
Whoever makes these accommodations for people with disabilities should be required to experience them for themselves. It’s not hard.
With the advent of google street view and comments/tagging, it would awesome if the users could identify problem areas in a city which might be difficult for persons with disabilities to get around.
Personalized maps based on needs.
Doug, that’s such an awesome idea.
Years ago I discovered that the reason my landlord was leaving town and renting me his house so cheap was because he’d just won his lawsuit against the city we lived in. Most folks thought he was a cranky old jerk. He was, in fact, a fairly patient civic-minded disabled WWII vet, who was a bit miffed that, four years after ADA modifications had been mandated he still couldn’t attend meetings at the Vet’s hall because the entire area was inaccessible to wheelchairs.
Doug’s suggestion might inspire a long tail of civic-mindedness.
Great idea indeed, Doug. How would it work? Got a URL?
Jonathan, I agree. We also try to navigate our websites sans mouse etc to experience, at least a bit, what some of our readers go through.
With the work we did on twittertale.com and politweets.com I have been really focused right now on how much information is out there (the river) and how to separate useful bits from it (streams). I am not 100% sure how this would work, however I would love to help make it happen.
First issue would be “how do we get a comment on the map”? Once that is solved we could use something like mechanical turk to start documenting those problem areas. Another possible issue is an accessibility barrier set up by some of the sites that perform these great services. How accessible is google maps for instance? The biggest contributors would be those with the most experience and unfortunately not all sites provide an experience for them to share theirs.
I have mild cerebral palsy (VERY mild, luckily), that has only ever affected my balance. Nevertheless, the heavy snow this winter has been giving me problems. One business near me absolutely failed to shovel its sidewalks after December’s blizzard, instead opting to throw down ridiculous amounts of salt and ash to give the craggy butte of compacted ice some traction. It was a nightmare to walk across. The business in question? A physical therapy office. The mind boggles.
People don’t realize just how difficult it can be to get around a city (in my case, Boston) until they’ve broken a leg or been confined to a wheelchair. I’ve also had some interesting experiences when riding the subway.
I think Doug has a great idea. I would be willing to help out with the development of such a site, just contact me.
Jonathan Dobres: The mind boggles indeed. (And the fist clenches and the throat gets a big old lump in it.) Thank you for sharing.
It’s not just people in wheelchairs. We live about a 20 minute walk from the local shopping mall. We walk there with our daughter in a stroller and encounter missing ramps, missing sidewalks for a block or two at a time, etc. The city and commercial developers just assume everyone drives everywhere, and surround all these shopping centres with vast moats of parking.
Strollers are an excellent accessibility sensitization tool.
I remember when Carrie and I had to take our then three-month-old across London’s Hungerford Bridge in a stroller.
To get to the bridge, you must climb a high, open staircase. With two parents, it is possible (although physically difficult and exhausting) to lug a child all the way up the stairs to the bridge. With one parent, you’re out of luck (as you would be in a wheelchair).
After we’d done this for several days, a British man who operated a concession near the bridge inclined his head toward an obscure corner of the foot of the bridge and said, “There’s a lift.”
It was very English, because he had watched us endure this misery for several days before saying anything to help.
So we went to the lift (AKA elevator) and rang the buzzer.
But the lift didn’t work. It never came. There was no “out of order” sign (that would imply some kind of maintenance, however desultory); there was just a bridge with an elevator that didn’t work and no sign to let you know.
So after standing there for 20 minutes, we once again lugged our child up the stairs.
I thought, “Wow, things are inaccessible in London.” Then I came back to New York, which was much less accessible than London. So.
Another sensitivity tool is a Segway believe it or not. My brother lives in Baltimore and near his neighborhood there’s a company that rents them by the hour. A group of us went out on the streets riding up to Patterson Park. Eased curb ramps even in a motorized Segway go down into a cross walk with people coming the other way is intimidating. And worse yet cars do not always give pedestrians the right of way. My sister was into the crosswalk on her Segway when this car started to make a right turn on RED which is legal. But she’s in the intersection and she’s desperately trying to get across. You definitely feel the danger of every intersection on a Segway and that was just for one measly little hour. My hat is off to each and every person who negotiates any city street on a daily basis in any kind of wheel chair. ADA has forced some public buildings to be more accessible, but we need an ADA 2 to get the rest of the way I think.
“he users could identify problem areas in a city”
“Great idea indeed, Doug. How would it work? Got a URL?”
http://www.fillthathole.org.uk/ seems like a good start. Ok, it’s about pot-holes, although cycling into a pothole at 50kph isn’t fun either… But as a model of using Google maps to put pressure on authorities to fix stuff, it works.
Great lead, Ed.
You’d think they’d… ah, never mind. I guess we all learn to know better after a while. I’m glad you and the other person helped the woman. Discovering the lack of a ramp after crossing the street must have really distressed her. Even all the way up here in New Hampshire it’s makng me scratch my head.
Thirty years. Maybe 2008 will be their Year of the Ramp.
@Doug: Great idea.
You mean something like this?:
http://www.springwise.com/government/tagging_repairs_for_local_gove/
http://www.springwise.com/government/mmsing_local_government_update/
http://www.springwise.com/government/mmsing_local_government/
Last year my fiancee broke her foot falling over a bad piece of footpath (no, we didn’t sue; we’re Australians ;P).
We had to do Christmas Shopping with her in a wheelchair because she simply couldn’t last that long on crutches. Our local shopping centres have loaner wheelchairs which is awesome, but the experience was quite an eye-opener.
People don’t get out of the way of wheelchairs, in fact many people stupidly step right in front while you’re in motion; many shops have areas too small or cluttered to get around; one department store was using the accessible changeroom as storage and had to shuffle things around so she could get in there; disabled toilets had broken door open/close mechanisms; and so on.
When you need these things, you suddenly realise that accessibility really really needs to be 100%. Not 50%, or 90%, not even 99%. Because that 1% can get you killed, if it’s a missing curb ramp.
We’re not an enlightened society just yet. We still marginalise disabled people, in ways that are even more disappointing for being mundane (after all, who needs a bit of dignity while you go to the toilet? oh wait, all of us).
Jeffrey said, “It was very English, because he had watched us endure this misery for several days before saying anything to help.”
I respond with a mixture of anger and disappointment – it’s a shame that your experience of London left that impression of English people on your mind; an impression so strong that you feel justified in lumping some 50 million people in the disobliging category.
I’m English and consider myself to be polite and helpful – and I know many people who are also English, also polite, and also helpful.
Had I been in New York, I may have been that man who helped that old lady.
Let’s hope your next trip to the UK leaves you with a better impression – we’re not all that bad.
Ben, beautifully said and profoundly true.
Shane, sorry to offend. I was thinking of the “mustn’t grumble” aspect of British life, which can extend beyond the self. People in Britain are tough. They can tolerate all kinds of discomfort and frustration, not to mention train and other service outages, without complaining. (The same is true of New Yorkers.)
I have no doubt that that shopkeeper would have leaped to his feet to help if my wife and I had lost our footing on the bridge, or if our baby had been in any jeopardy.
I think he watched us struggle for a few days before he decided we were okay and worth cluing in about the lift.
And I’m sure he didn’t know the lift was out of service.
Nice topic. Good on you for helping out. This subject is near and dear–I’ve used a wheelchair since I broke my neck in an accident in 1999, and without a companion, I won’t go out and about most places for fear of getting stuck in a situation like you described. So, I’m always glad when there are people like you around who are willing to give a push, pull a door, etc. :)
I haven’t been abroad, but I’ve traveled quite a bit in the USA–most big cities, and have learned how inaccessible most of them are. Some are better than others, and newer is usually better, but it is tough out there.
I could go on and on about this, but just considering the curb thing…It may surprise many to know that the majority of curbs that ARE cut are still not easy to use for manual chair users like me, as there is almost always an obstacle (ramp too steep, has a threshold, not maintained–holes, uneven pavement, or my favorite, people standing in it). I almost got hit by a cab when visiting NYC, because I could not get enough momentum to get up the curb cutout due to people standing in it. I didn’t want to hit them with my chair, so I was stuck in the street shouting “watch out!” when the light changed.
Unfortunately, I think most a people (God bless ‘em) are clueless about this kind of stuff until they experience it, so it just isn’t a priority. I spent 27 years never realizing any of it, then bam!, I couldn’t go anywhere. I just never knew it was a problem before!
“http://www.fillthathole.org.uk/ seems like a good start.”
“Great lead, Ed.”
Indeed. And how very English.
James, thanks for sharing. Even when ramps exist and even when they aren’t problematic to navigate, people who don’t need to use ramps always seem to block them. It’s amazing.
This is quite eye-opening, especially since I have never really experienced it.
And I agree that a consumerist.com type site for public services and facilities and the like is a great idea.
But my main take away from this post is that I need to stop and help strangers more. I tend to isolate myself from my surroundings, but now I need to open my eyes and help strangers in need.
Thanks for letting me see that!
In NYC, if you trip on a pothole or sidewalk that belongs to the City of New York, you may sue and you may even win, if you find that the City had been notified of the problem and did not fix it in the given amount of time (and I just don’t remember what that is).
Not directly related, but thought I’d share :)
For anyone considering building a site as Doug suggests, a good place to start might be FixMyStreet.com, which gives away its source code. Sadly it’s beyond my skills (I’m a designer, not a developer), though I’d be happy to help to the extent of my abilities — follow URL for contact email.
@Renata – episode 110 of This American Life talks about that topic. http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=824
I feel that the only reason one person should sue for an incident like you describe is to get some sort of dignity back and help them come to realize that it wasn’t their fault they tripped, it must be something or someone else’s…. sarcasm.
Another link to share, sort of going in the direction that has been discussed in the comments. http://nyc.everyblock.com/
I am a disable vet, busted up my shoulder and had a bunch or operations. When I went to a hospital in a body brace that covered my upper body in plastic and iron bars I had to walk through the security thing at the front door. First, I had a hard time finding an angle to walk through – then the idiot at the door asked me to take off the brace so the alarm would not sound as I walked through the door.
Sad.
I come from Slovakia (Eastern Europe – former comunistic bloc). And in Bratislava (the city I live in and the capital city of my country in the same time) there have been lots of inaccessible public places and buildings in the past but over the past several years since the Velvet Revolution (in 1989 when the comunistic regime fell), many things have changed towards better conditions including accessibility and the modern buildings being built nowadays are fully accessible.
In my practice I also focus on the Web Content Accessibility in my web projects I work on as a web coder from time to time in addition to studying at a college and also working full-time as a cashier in a supermarket.
The reason why my aim is to contribute to creating accessible web sites is also because I myself am a handicapped person having one eye blind so I know what’s it like to be discriminated just because of having a dissability.
And that’s why I’m involved in an initiative in my country to teach other coders to create accessible web sites.
I am so glad for the work that has been done in this to improve web content accessibility but we still are not at the end. There’s still a lot to do about it.
Can you agree with me?
yours fidelis from Slovakia
In response to Doug’s idea, you can create personalized Google maps here:
http://maps.google.com/help/maps/mymaps/create.html
[...] January of 2008 Jeffery Zeldman wrote a post that really changed the way I thought about the web. The article talked about a disabled woman in a motorized scooter and how she had a difficult time [...]