PLANNING MUST BECOME MORE INCLUSIVE FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

PLANNERS MUST USE THE WEALTH OF RESOURCES AVAILABLE TO ENSURE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES ARE INVOLVED IN DESIGN THAT CAN EMPOWER OR HINDER THEIR MOBILITY AND QUALITY OF LIFE

While celebrating the ADA's 31st anniversary, I was asked what planners can do to design more inclusively. 

Go to the source.

Involve those who use wheelchairs for mobility in your outreach, design and implementation.

It is presumptive and foolish to do otherwise.

No one would plan for a Hispanic-majority neighborhood without immersing in the community with Spanish-speaking planning team members. 

Why would people who have no idea what is needed to remove barriers -- redesign a complete street without involving experts with disabilities?

Cities rural and urban have Centers for Independent Living -- with expert members.

United Spinal Association has chapters across the nation.

It isn't hard to get input from people with disabilities.

Most Counties and Cities have ADA coordinators or mayor's office for people with disabilities. 

Colleges and universities have disabled student services offices. 

If you are not finding resources for input from a wide range of people with disabilities, you are not trying.

THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT IS ENTERING ITS FOURTH DECADE

THAT’S A MAJOR NEWS STORY

I hope every newspaper, from the great old newspapers of record to the smallest daily in Middle America;

every television station, from the highest rated network news to the smallest cable access show;

and every radio news program, from Washington D.C. to low watt operation in the Rocky Mountains; 

has its best reporters, columnists and anchors working on ADA stories.

THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT IS ENTERING ITS FOURTH DECADE

THAT’S A MAJOR NEWS STORY

Countless people of all ages have died of COVID in nursing homes and similar facilities — because despite being the wealthiest of nations, we prefer to warehouse people with disabilities in substandard conditions.

The rights of people with disabilities must be researched, explored and explained by dogged journalists.

THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT IS ENTERING ITS FOURTH DECADE

THAT’S A MAJOR NEWS STORY

Incredibly GOP’s standard bearer, while serving as president of the U.S., willfully mocked disabled people in front of the entire nation. 

He then rubbed salt in the wounds by smirkingly acting like nothing was wrong with it, while steadfastly refusing to apologize.

This is why the ADA — its gains, its failures, its impact, its future and any threats to its existence — MUST be explored in depth by every news organization.

The media is our last defense in protecting diversity while ensuring rights for all.

THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT IS ENTERING ITS FOURTH DECADE

THAT’S A MAJOR NEWS STORY

The ADA has accomplished a lot over the three decades that it has been enforced as federal civil rights legislation.

It should be noted that it was approved with bipartisan support, with a Republican in the White House.

THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT IS ENTERING ITS FOURTH DECADE

THAT’S A MAJOR NEWS STORY

This is a problem and I worry that our national discussion about leveling the playing field for all — rarely if ever focuses on harrowing gaps in equity faced by people with disabilities.

I am urging journalists to be aware of this lack in coverage. 

When the 30th anniversary of unique legislation to protect civil rights of people with disabilities took place in 2020, the lack of coverage was glaring.

THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT IS ENTERING ITS FOURTH DECADE

THAT’S A MAJOR NEWS STORY

Do people suffer from housing discrimination because of race, gender, orientation? 

Yes.

Is there any minority (other than people with disabilities) limited to less than one percent of all housing? 

The answer is a resounding no.

HONORED TO PRESENT ON INCLUSIVE DESIGN

AT FLORIDA AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE 

The pandemic emphasizes the need for inclusion in planning. 

COVID-19’s silver lining is renewed emphasis on safer pedestrian travel, transit and more outdoor-recreation space. 

But mobility remains a big challenge for people with disabilities. 

Transit access is dependent on compliant sidewalks with a clear path of travel to get to the bus stop. 

First/last mile “solutions” such as rideshare and micromobility are not accessible to wheelers and many other disabled folks. 

Dockless scooters and bikes block wheelchair users and trip blind people. 

This is the game-changing story of designing safe, more inclusive complete streets, transit stops, crosswalks and recreation/civic/green space.

 --Wiatt Bowers AICP, Heidi Johnson Wright JD, Steve Wright, David Haight FAICP LEED AP ND

THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT IS ENTERING ITS FOURTH DECADE

THAT’S A MAJOR NEWS STORY

People with disabilities have long been the most unemployed and under employed of all minority groups.

Less than one percent of all housing in the United States is readily accessible to people who use wheelchairs.

Let that sink in.

THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT IS ENTERING ITS FOURTH DECADE

THAT’S A MAJOR NEWS STORY

Inequality, discrimination and bigotry — based on race, physical ability, gender, identity, belief system — denies education, housing, jobs and opportunity to deserving people.

At its worst, bigotry can cut a life short.

In a time when America is taking a long look at police brutality, an out of balance justice system and fractured public policy — we must all join together to eliminate all inequities.

THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT IS ENTERING ITS FOURTH DECADE

THAT’S A MAJOR NEWS STORY

The Americans with Disabilities Act turns 31 on July 26.

For people with disabilities, the ADA is their federal civil rights protection — equal to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, landmark civil rights and labor law that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Inclusion of all people is a key topic of the turbulent times.

WANT TO BUILD A STRONG TOWN?

 MAKE IT WORK FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES 

What produces better metrics than city infrastructure that allows an unemployed person to become a productive earner who pays back into the system, so there are funds to keep the safety net in place?

What policy can produce more widespread results than building more inclusive cities so the next generation of people with disabilities can enjoy equitable access to education, jobs, and civic life?

WANT TO BUILD A STRONG TOWN?

  MAKE IT WORK FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

What could possibly be a better investment than converting a person on assistance into a proud, productive taxpayer?

How could municipal spending deliver more bang for the buck than giving a person with a disability the tools to live independently?

WANT TO BUILD A STRONG TOWN?

 MAKE IT WORK FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

People with disabilities are resourceful, brilliant, and starving for that first job and better work. 

Sending a monthly check to a disabled person—which does not cover the cost of monthly rent for a one-bedroom unit in the vast majority of American cities—is patronizing.

Spending on wider sidewalks, safer crosswalks, and inclusive transit modes will not only make a better city for all, but it also will put people with disabilities to work.

TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE

WASTES MY TIME AND MAKES YOUR RESTAURANT DEAD TO ME

Bombay Darbar Miami.  

You have the best Indian Kitchen in South Florida. 

Everything else is forcing me to pick the second-best kitchen and make you dead to me.

Ordering on the phone is a 1- minute process for a 1-minute task. 

The simplest of orders confusing your staff. 

We were rudely told to order online only -- which we used to do, but it kept stopping before completing the order -- so a huge waste of time. 

20 minutes to order 4 items. 

Should take 1 minute. 

Took forever for menu to load, for address to populate.  

Then some insane 5-minute countdown for it to accept the order.

Followed by a notice that order was missed (no idea what that means other than your incompetence). 

So I hit retry -- credit card charged a second time -- then minutes later, it says order was confirmed.  

Will I get 2 orders when I want one? 

Will I pay $120 for $60 worth of food?  

Will the order ever come?  

Will I waste more time on the phone trying to make sure I'm not double charged?

At this rate, I could go to school and learn how to make Indian food -- for half the time, one forth the cost and 1/100th the hassle. 

Fix this.

WANT TO BUILD A STRONG TOWN?

 MAKE IT WORK FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Want to make your town stronger still? 

Stop looking at ADA compliance with contempt and at barrier-removal as some loss-leader, special interest spending.

Inclusive and equitable cities are places where innovation is supported, brilliant things are invented, jobs are created, and creative people thrive on urban amenities.

WANT TO BUILD A STRONG TOWN?

 MAKE IT WORK FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Best of all, these kinds of investments bring in a huge bang for the buck.

If you design, after consulting people with a wide range of disabilities, a barrier-free public realm, then you have just ensured your civic assets are 100% accessible by all your residents regardless of age, income, color, or ability.

Increasing access—for example, via common sense removal of sign posts, junction boxes and obstacles that block sidewalks—makes your town stronger.

WANT TO BUILD A STRONG TOWN?

 MAKE IT WORK FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

People with disabilities are not served by the suburban development pattern, by roads to nowhere, by endless annexation and horizontal growth. 

They are served by compact, mixed-use, transit-rich, old growth areas with main libraries, central parks, downtown universities, medical centers in the center of town, and main street services.

WANT TO BUILD A STRONG TOWN?

 MAKE IT WORK FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Many cities will be making things more pedestrian-friendly, adding open space, reinventing the built environment to cope with social distancing and needs that became obvious during the pandemic. 

They should invest simultaneously in inclusion, equity and access in the city core for people with disabilities, which pays dividends in the form of precious tax dollars.

WANT TO BUILD A STRONG TOWN?

 MAKE IT WORK FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Ask any person with a disability.

They will tell you their body is not what limits them. 

Endless broken sidewalks, buses with inoperable lifts, transit systems located up or down stairs but with no elevators, parks without paved trails, pools without lifts, homes without zero-step entrances—those are the things that are limiting.

All those things could be fixed by spending a fraction of the stimulus funds coming to American cities.

WANT TO BUILD A STRONG TOWN?

 MAKE IT WORK FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Physical barriers like these have caused unrivaled poverty for people with disabilities, who are far more likely to experience unemployment or underemployment than those without a disability.

On top of that, less than 1% of housing stock is move-in ready for people who use wheelchairs for mobility. 

Do the math. If you make the least amount of money in the nation, you probably can’t pay for $100,000 in renovations to make your home accessible, safe and livable.

PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES MUST ALWAYS BE ABLE TO USE THE MAIN ENTRANCE

SEPARATE, HIDDEN, LOCKED ELEVATORS ARE DANGEROUS AND DISCRIMINATORY 

This is my wife, waiting 20+ minutes to simply enter the Marshalls at 255 E. Flagler in downtown Miami.

The elevator must be summoned by ringing a bell, but no one responds. We phoned twice & got hung up on.

The downtown Miami Marshalls store discriminates against people with disabilities by segregating its elevator far from the main entrance.

Wheelchair users routinely wait a half hour for a response to unlock it.

For more than 2 decades, the Marshalls in downtown Miami segregates people with disabilities to an unmarked locked elevator far from its main entrance.

Its parent company earns $32 billion in one year.

It can afford an all-access elevator at its main entrance.

If I said you had to wait 30 minutes to enter my store if you are Black/Jewish/LGBTQ, I would expect boycotts/protests/lawsuits.

So why does downtown Miami Marshalls make people with disabilities wait half hour for staff to unlock elevator?

Discrimination strips dignity.

We have contacted a regional manager and told him the only thing that will change this is a new elevator for all without controlled access.

WANT TO BUILD A STRONG TOWN?

 MAKE IT WORK FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Barriers remain in many forms.

For example, a brand-new building with steps at the main entrance discriminates against people with disabilities who must enter separately via a ramp off to the side. 

Many subway and elevated train systems cannot be accessed by wheelchair users.

WANT TO BUILD A STRONG TOWN?

 MAKE IT WORK FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

There has been a lot of attention paid to environmental justice—reversing the ills urban planning created when poor, predominantly Black neighborhoods were razed for highways or other projects, erasing home ownership and wealth. 

Environmental justice must also address America’s history of excluding people with disabilities from public pools, jury boxes, schools, and dozens of other basic government facilities.

This discrimination lasted well into the end of the 20th century.

WANT TO BUILD A STRONG TOWN?

 MAKE IT WORK FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

An accessible built environment is wise spending, because it takes existing urban density, walkability, and mixed-use development and makes it even more attractive for people of all abilities to immerse in the community and age in place. 

On the flip side, passively pretending that accessibility issues will magically take care of themselves—without earmarked dollars for accessibility in public works projects—condemns municipalities to failure.

WANT TO BUILD A STRONG TOWN?

 MAKE IT WORK FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

The beauty of this approach is that what works for a person with a disability works for all.

A crosswalk that has proper timing, markings and is free of obstructions is also safe and useful for children, families and the elderly. 

More curb ramps make life easier for everyone from delivery drivers rolling hand trucks, to office workers with rolling brief cases, to those who walk in high heels.

WANT TO BUILD A STRONG TOWN?

MAKE IT WORK FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

The stimulus bill is delivering billions to U.S. cities. 

As we try to rebound, significant spending should be dedicated to better sidewalks, crosswalks, ramps, transit, parks, housing, education and job access—for people with a wide range of disabilities. 

Money must be focused on outreach, design, construction, and maintenance that creates universal design and inclusive mobility.

WANT TO BUILD A STRONG TOWN?

MAKE IT WORK FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) hasn’t guaranteed accessibility and inclusion for people with disabilities. 

Even before the pandemic, public spending to remove barriers for wheelchair users and others was woefully inadequate. 

City and county budgets are routinely approved with zero dollars dedicated to removing obstacles and downright dangerous barriers.

Spending on capital improvement and public works projects is rarely dedicated to removing barriers and enhancing accessibility.

But especially in times of prosperity and peril, people with disabilities have been left behind.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

SADLY, PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES STILL ARE SEEKING

EQUALITY, INCUSION, ACCESSIBILITY AND INDEPENDENCE

“Disability discrimination is not a lesser form of discrimination. It is not benign. It is not understandable. It is not rational and there is no rational basis for it. A civil rights agenda is hollow without a commitment to combat disability bias and ableism.” -- Gregory Mansfield, Disabled Lawyer. Disability Rights and Disability Justice.                  Twitter: @GHMansfield

I wish I had written those words in italics. The end line, posted on Twitter by activist Gregory Mansfield, capture exactly what I have been trying to express for more than a year.

In the past year, politicians and corporations have scrambled to up their equity and inclusion games.

I have read thousands of diversity and inclusion statements, but saw disability mentioned maybe once or twice.

I wondered why a commitment, if genuine, to uplift marginalized people via hiring, promotion and other programs -- didn't seem to include people with disabilities.

I recently read a story about Senator Tammy Duckworth sponsoring legislation to fund the retrofitting of every transit station to include access for disabilities.

This is great. And about time. Only a fraction of subway and elevated trains are accessible to wheelchair users in New York, Chicago and many other places where movement by transit is essential to getting to work, home, medical appointments, shopping, recreation and all other daily needs.

For more than a century, this nation has been content with that kind of exclusion.

Imagine if we dictated that people who are Black, Hispanic, Jewish, Catholic or part of the LGBTQ community could only access a fraction of the essential public transit in their dense urban cites.

No one would accept it. But disabled people have had to accept that second class status.

We all most bond together to continue the struggle for true independence.

Read a full-length piece on Medium at:

https://stevewright-1964.medium.com/happy-independence-day-7817bb78d955

https://stevewright-1964.medium.com/happy-independence-day-7817bb78d955

BEYOGLU, ISTANBUL

  THE EUROPEAN "NEW TOWN" ACROSS THE GOLDEN HORN

Beyoglu is a brief and magical ferry ride across the Golden Horn from the old city’s Eminonu docks to Karakoy.

The waterfront area follows the Golden Horn to its mouth off the Bosphorus.

Dozens of street vendors set up, serving tea, coffee, snacks…or playing solo or in a band – to earn the tips of locals and visitors.

BEYOGLU, ISTANBUL

  THE EUROPEAN "NEW TOWN" ACROSS THE GOLDEN HORN

Karakoy is a former docklands area that was far off the tourist path and somewhat sketchy.

Now it is lined with pricey hipster joints open late each night.

There are lots of nargile joints in this part of Beyoglu.

The food can range from modern gourmet burgers to old time Turkish street food such as kumpir.