RON MACE
Universal design means many things to
many people. But anyone who has used a wheelchair for mobility can tell you
what it is NOT:
• A vertical platform wheelchair lift
foolishly installed to provide access to beachfront shops and cafes — when the
reality is keys that are required to operate the lifts get lost, sea spray
rusts parts, and the enclosures around the lifts become filled with garbage or
are used as bathrooms by drunken partiers.
• A park designed only with
nondisabled visitors in mind, with winding staircases, inaccessible water
features and barely barrier-free restrooms. The only accessibility features are
ugly retrofits that accommodate disabled guests, but unacceptably segregate
them from the main pedestrian routes that remain impassible to wheelers.
• Designs by architects and planners
who clearly wish they could seek a zoning variance that absolves them from any
responsibility for designing public spaces for people with limited mobility.
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