CITIES THAT DON’T TOW CARS PARKED OVER SIDEWALKS

ARE DISRCIMINATING AGAINST PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Illegal car parking destroys pedestrian safety and forces people with disabilities into Miami’s dangerous street traffic. 

Perpetually 2 or 3 cars park on NE 9 St @ Marina Blue mixed use tower.

Miami has a Downton Development Authority that has a quality of life team in the streets each day.

I wonder if they have any training on ADA accessibility.

I fear they do not spend one day out of 365 trying to make mobility better for people with disabilities in the city center.

THE CITY OF MIAMI ROUTINELY ALLOWS MILLIONS IN RENOVATIONS

WHILE APPROVING FAULTY WHEELCHAIR ACCESS 

THAT FAILS ALL THE TIME

This is what happens when you segregate the wheelchair accessible entrance from the main entrance in an urban area.

An impenetrable gauntlet of human waste, broken glass and homeless person’s bedding.

When a city allows adaptive reuse of a building, but permits lousy wheelchair access – it is ableism at its worst.

Millions of dollars were spent converting an old post office into a craft brewery in downtown Miami.

The excuse is historic preservation prevents an appropriate ramp at the main entrance.

It’s total BS.

Stairs are NOT historic.

Facades are.

WHEN ARCHITECTS AND PLANNERS CREATE MINIMUM WHEELCHAIR ACCESS

THEY CREATE MAXIMIM DENIAL OF BASIC RIGHTS

FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

 

This is what happens when clueless architects & feckless city regulators allow one wheelchair accessible access point at each end of a super block.

Restaurants block the access to create more dining space.

This is 1900 block of Miami’s Calle8.

All those who cannot go up steps, have to journey four times the distance shown in this image to the eastern ramp hidden on a side avenue.

El Toro Loco is violating the ADA and destroying mobility for people with disabilities with its selfish blocking of the accessible route.

In Town Miami, the company that leases the space to the offending restaurant MUST open the accessible route immediately.

The City of Miami has 100% neglected to fix this – refusing to protect our seniors and people with disabilities.

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Hawa Allarakhia has a Master in Education from the University of South Florida and is currently a doctoral candidate at USF. 

She is studying Program Development with a research interest in Disability Services with a graduate certificate in Academic Advising. 

She holds the positions of Graduate Assistant in the Office of Research, on the Sarasota-Manatee campus of USF. 

For questions, please contact her by email at hawa1@usf.edu

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

Q How did you incorporate the experiences and challenges faced by individuals with invisible disabilities?

A This was spoken about in class, and it was featured in some of the assigned materials for reading/video viewing/social media following outside of class (and graded via required journal entries on these subjects).

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

Q How did you incorporate the experiences and challenges faced by individuals with temporary disabilities?

A In each of our 15 course sessions, we explained that disability is not some remote, outlier issue … that it is not just a person with a spinal cord injury. 

We explained how universal design supports aging in place. 

We also underscored, frequently, the truth that barrier-free design is NOT simply for people with disabilities. 

That it makes the public realm and interior of spaces easier to live in for children, elderly, and all people. 

And that it can be beautiful and sustainable design.

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

Q How did you incorporate the experiences and challenges faced by individuals with physical disabilities?

A One of the team teachers uses a wheelchair for mobility. 

Also, we had guest lectures from nationally prominent architect Karen Braitmayer and designer Ileana Rodriguez — each of whom use wheelchairs for mobility. 

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

Q How did you incorporate the experiences and challenges faced by individuals with social and psychological disabilities?

A We had an expert presenter from the Center for Autism & Related Disabilities (CARD).

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

Q How did you incorporate the experiences and challenges faced by individuals with visual disabilities into the course?

A We had a guest lecture, via Zoom, from renowned expert Peter Slatin and had a live in-class presentation by a trainer from Lighthouse for the Blind.

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED. 

Q How did you incorporate the experiences and challenges faced by individuals with hearing-related disabilities into the course?

A We had a guest lecture, via Zoom, from renowned expert Jeffrey Mansfield (via interpreter) of Deaf Space.

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

Q Did you design the course with a disability model in mind, i.e., medical, social, or moral?

A The model was certainly not medical or moral. 

So I suppose it was social. 

Basically, a lot of architects (not just students in the field) think the ADA is some kind of building code that can be waived or reduced by variance. 

I taught that it is basic civil rights protection under federal law. I also opened eyes by sharing that the UN has identified more than 1 billion people with disabilities on earth, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) numbers say one in four of us will experience a disability in our lifetimes. 

Those numbers speak to a market for design that accommodates all.

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

Q What impact do you believe a course about universal design will have on students with disabilities across higher education?

A A few of the students said they would dedicate/refocus their careers on design for all. 

A few, in all candor, seemed to reject the ADA and universal design as something constricting or even “woke” — their words.

Overall, I think it opened minds. 

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED. 

Q How did you approach the University of Miami-School of Architecture about offering a course on universal design?

A approached the Dean of the School of Architecture and cultivated a friendship with him.

I performed editorial content services for the SoA and kept pitching ideas for a course.

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

Q Can you provide some background on the inspiration to develop a Universal Design course that focuses on architecture and cultivating a built environment that is accessible to all?

A I have been a journalist for nearly 40 years, and all of that time I have covered both the built environment and the rights/needs of marginalized people.

Combing those into a survey course that educated future architects/urban designers on universal design was a natural progression.

I have worked with town planners and as an urban designer. 

I frequently lecture on access for all at the American Planning Association.

ACCESSIBILITY CULTIVATING ACCESSIBLE ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL:

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE WRIGHT BY HAWA ALLARAKHIA, M.ED.

At the University of Miami, students studying architecture now have the opportunity to learn about incorporating accessibility by taking a first-of-its-kind class about universal design. 

Steve Wright, the instructor of the course, discusses how he integrated the experiences and needs of a wide variety of individuals with disabilities into the course.

 

ABLEIST DESIGN

SEGREGATES, ISOLATES, HUMILIATES PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Imagine every day at work, you walk and roll to the office, out to lunch, etc. -- with your fellow employees. But you cannot joint them because your entrance is separated.

You have do the walk and roll of shame up a ramp hidden off from the main entrance – creating a barrier between you and mainstream access.

This is the Florida Department of Health’s main entrance to the facility providing dozens of essential services to millions of Miami-Dade County residents.

It is up steps.

There is a tiny, almost hidden sign indicating a ramp — but not even an arrow pointing the direction to wheelchair access somewhere off in the distance.

The building is relatively new — built decades after the Americans with Disabilities Act.

How can anyone design or build something that creates segregation, the gives wheelchair users second class status?

DESIGN FOR ALL IS WORTH IT

AND OFTEN CAN BE DONE AT A LOW COST

I don’t have statistics, but common sense would also prove that when you increase walkability/rollability, thus connectivity to education, jobs, community activities – you increase earning power.

That increases income (and the tax roll) for people with disabilities.

In the United States, people with disabilities are the most under- and unemployed of any marginalized group.

Access in the public realm isn’t just the right thing to do, it is sound public policy on many levels.

DESIGN FOR ALL IS WORTH IT

AND OFTEN CAN BE DONE AT A LOW COST

Adding curb ramps, protected crosswalks, wider sidewalks and smoother surfaces can be blended into all of those complete streets, pavement repaving, mainstreet sidewalk enhancements and other public works projects.

When done from scratch, rather than a retrofit to fix poor planning for accessibility, the cost is rarely more than fractionally more costly than not building for access for all.

DESIGN FOR ALL IS WORTH IT

AND OFTEN CAN BE DONE AT A LOW COST

Smooth, wide, safe, gently sloped surfaces also are beloved by those who wear heels (reduces tripping hazard) and the army of delivery people who wheel our daily online purchases to our doorstep.

I also want to bust the myth that making something accessible (we call it compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act in the United States, but hundreds of nations have similar law to make life better for people with disabilities while protecting their civil rights) doesn’t mean busting the budget.

DESIGN FOR ALL IS WORTH IT

AND OFTEN CAN BE DONE AT A LOW COST

One in four, more than one billion – people have some kind of disability.

That is neither outlier or special interest, by any definition.

When you design something that makes it easier for a wheelchair user to move about your city – 

you also have made pedestrian mobility better for young children, elderly people, those with visual impairments and dozens of others (including those who use scooters, walkers or crutches.)