Michelle
11-25-2006, 06:33 PM
Public transit not wheelchair-friendly (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Subway_Wheelchairs.html)
By DAVID B. CARUSO
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/aponline/34424.84SUBWAY-WHEELCHAIRS.sff.jpg
Michael Harris, right, campaign coordinator for the Disabled Riders Coalition (http://www.disablednyc.com/resources/links/Disabled_Riders_Coalition-281.html), rides a subway in New York Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006. (AP Photo/Adam Rountree)
NEW YORK -- When Michael Harris powered his motorized wheelchair off the No. 5 subway train at a station in Brooklyn, he found that the elevator to the street was broken.
He turned to a station agent for help and was told to try backtracking three stops to the next-closest station with a working lift.
Harris called 911 instead, summoning a team of firefighters who hoisted his 300-pound wheelchair to the surface and carried him up on a gurney, "like the ones they use to carry dead bodies out of burning buildings," he said.
To many, the episode last week might seem like an overreaction, but Harris said he was simply fed up with repeated breakdowns and unhelpful workers in a transit system that is barely wheelchair-friendly to begin with.
"If you're stuck on a platform with no way to get out, what if there's a fire?" said Harris, 22, a coordinator for an advocacy group called the Disabled Riders Coalition.
The problems wheelchair users experience in New York have been echoed in other cities with old public transit systems, including Boston and Chicago, which both have been hit with lawsuits.
New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been working for nearly two decades to make its century-old subway system accessible to people with disabilities, but activists say the effort has been slow and fraught with problems.
Just 55 of the system's 468 subway stations are considered wheelchair-accessible, and equipment failures are routine in those stations. A report issued in August said the elevators in Manhattan's 23 accessible stations experienced 3,374 service outages from 2002 to 2005. In 2005, the average elevator was out of service for a cumulative 13 days, according to the report by the office of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.
New York City Transit spokeswoman Deidre Parker said the agency is doing what it can to change a system built during an era when people gave little thought to accommodating people with disabilities.
By law, the MTA must have at least 100 key stations fully wheelchair-accessible by 2020. Parker said the authority is on track to meet that target, although it won't be easy or cheap.
As for broken or vandalized elevators, the MTA has a 24-hour rapid response repair team. It also maintains a telephone information line with a list of outages, but Parker acknowledged that some passengers still occasionally find themselves stranded unexpectedly.
"I'm sure that for someone who is disabled and depends on these elevators, once is too much," she said.
Parker said evacuations of stranded passengers by firefighters are rare.
Activists in Boston filed suit in 2002 over broken elevators and inaccessible stations for trains and buses run by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. The MBTA settled the suit in April by agreeing to spend more than $310 million on station upgrades and better maintenance.
In Chicago, several groups sued over access for the disabled, citing poorly maintained and frequently out-of-service lifts. The Chicago Transit Authority agreed to a series of changes, including extending the hours when repairs were made and installing devices that make it easier for wheelchair users to get on and off trains.
"It's far from perfect, but we definitely felt like we got some improvements," said Laura Miller, managing attorney for the Illinois-based access group Equip for Equality.
Even with improvements, riding public transit in a city like New York may never be easy for passengers like Harris. On a ride uptown from City Hall on Tuesday, he had to take a roundabout route involving three trains to get to the wheelchair-accessible station in Herald Square.
Some fellow passengers on packed platforms smiled, others grumbled and reluctantly stepped out of his way.
Does he schedule trips to avoid rush hour crowds?
"Nope," he said. "I have as much of a right to be here as anyone else."
By DAVID B. CARUSO
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/aponline/34424.84SUBWAY-WHEELCHAIRS.sff.jpg
Michael Harris, right, campaign coordinator for the Disabled Riders Coalition (http://www.disablednyc.com/resources/links/Disabled_Riders_Coalition-281.html), rides a subway in New York Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2006. (AP Photo/Adam Rountree)
NEW YORK -- When Michael Harris powered his motorized wheelchair off the No. 5 subway train at a station in Brooklyn, he found that the elevator to the street was broken.
He turned to a station agent for help and was told to try backtracking three stops to the next-closest station with a working lift.
Harris called 911 instead, summoning a team of firefighters who hoisted his 300-pound wheelchair to the surface and carried him up on a gurney, "like the ones they use to carry dead bodies out of burning buildings," he said.
To many, the episode last week might seem like an overreaction, but Harris said he was simply fed up with repeated breakdowns and unhelpful workers in a transit system that is barely wheelchair-friendly to begin with.
"If you're stuck on a platform with no way to get out, what if there's a fire?" said Harris, 22, a coordinator for an advocacy group called the Disabled Riders Coalition.
The problems wheelchair users experience in New York have been echoed in other cities with old public transit systems, including Boston and Chicago, which both have been hit with lawsuits.
New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been working for nearly two decades to make its century-old subway system accessible to people with disabilities, but activists say the effort has been slow and fraught with problems.
Just 55 of the system's 468 subway stations are considered wheelchair-accessible, and equipment failures are routine in those stations. A report issued in August said the elevators in Manhattan's 23 accessible stations experienced 3,374 service outages from 2002 to 2005. In 2005, the average elevator was out of service for a cumulative 13 days, according to the report by the office of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.
New York City Transit spokeswoman Deidre Parker said the agency is doing what it can to change a system built during an era when people gave little thought to accommodating people with disabilities.
By law, the MTA must have at least 100 key stations fully wheelchair-accessible by 2020. Parker said the authority is on track to meet that target, although it won't be easy or cheap.
As for broken or vandalized elevators, the MTA has a 24-hour rapid response repair team. It also maintains a telephone information line with a list of outages, but Parker acknowledged that some passengers still occasionally find themselves stranded unexpectedly.
"I'm sure that for someone who is disabled and depends on these elevators, once is too much," she said.
Parker said evacuations of stranded passengers by firefighters are rare.
Activists in Boston filed suit in 2002 over broken elevators and inaccessible stations for trains and buses run by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. The MBTA settled the suit in April by agreeing to spend more than $310 million on station upgrades and better maintenance.
In Chicago, several groups sued over access for the disabled, citing poorly maintained and frequently out-of-service lifts. The Chicago Transit Authority agreed to a series of changes, including extending the hours when repairs were made and installing devices that make it easier for wheelchair users to get on and off trains.
"It's far from perfect, but we definitely felt like we got some improvements," said Laura Miller, managing attorney for the Illinois-based access group Equip for Equality.
Even with improvements, riding public transit in a city like New York may never be easy for passengers like Harris. On a ride uptown from City Hall on Tuesday, he had to take a roundabout route involving three trains to get to the wheelchair-accessible station in Herald Square.
Some fellow passengers on packed platforms smiled, others grumbled and reluctantly stepped out of his way.
Does he schedule trips to avoid rush hour crowds?
"Nope," he said. "I have as much of a right to be here as anyone else."