REMOVE BUMPY SURFACES THAT ENDANGER WHEELCHAIR USERS
A smooth, pedestrian friendly surface
is urgently needed.
MARK – A CALL TO ACTION GLOBAL RELEASE OCTOBER 8, 2024
Thanks to award-winning producer-director Ron Small and the Bookman Family, I appear as America's Universal design expert in a 90-minute documentary.
"Mark -- A Call To Action" releases globally October 8th via streaming, digital, satellite and other outlets.
From Filmmaker Small:
I'm happy to share the DVD menu, with some bonus features not seen in the documentary.
Pre-order the DVD on Amazon.
Visit https://amzn.to/3L8UMyZ All proceeds benefit the #GLIDEFUND of The Mark Bookman Foundation.
COULD BE COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK
The headline contains the good/hopeful news.
But first
the bad.
For more
than half a century, my wife and all others who use a wheelchair for mobility, have
to check their legs at the door and worry during an entire flight.
The very real
possibility is an essential power or manual wheelchair will be broken beyond
repair, lost or damaged so much that the trip is ruined.
Every time I
get an online form thanking me for using an air carrier, I move to the “other”
comments and submit something like this:
Please build
a plane that allows wheelchair users to board in their power wheelchairs.
My wife is a
wheelchair user.
She cannot
fly with a power chair -- because the airlines are very well known (tragically)
for badly damaging, even losing wheelchairs.
Flying
without your wheelchair is like flying without your legs attached.
Technology
exists to allow a person to roll aboard and be safely secured for flying.
Forcing
people to stow their means of mobility out of sight and out of use is:
humiliating, terrifying -- something that strips dignity and perpetuates
discrimination.
Please
address this.
If you do
not, anything American Airlines states about commitment to equity, inclusion
and diversity -- rings 100 percent hollow.
Now the somewhat
good news, light at the end of the tunnel story:
THE KEY TO EQUITY, INCLUSION, DIVERSITY AND ACCESSIBILITY
I am grateful
for the opportunity to speak on Universal Design to 50+ experts at the American
Planning Association statewide conferences in Miami this week.
I spoke about how design for all delivers more welcoming, durable, flexible and sustainable homes, transit, parks, buildings, waterfronts and streetscapes.
I was joined, via pre-recorded messages for health/safety reasons -- by my brilliant soulmate of 33+ years, ADA and inclusion expert Heidi Johnson-Wright
Thanks David Height and Wiatt Bowers Wiatt Bowers, of Atkins, for making this happen and joining me in the presentation.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
ENSURING THE 15-MINUTE CITY SERVES ALL
“So, this
pandemic has only made it more clear that having a decent house to live in is a
human right we should all have.”
