TRULY ACCESSIBLE AIR TRAVEL

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:

https://www.travelpulse.com/news/airlines/truly-accessible-air-travel-could-be-coming-sooner-than-you-think.html

DISCARDED DOCKLESS SCOOTERS BLOCK SIDEWALKS, CURB RAMPS AND SAFE MOBILITY FOR WHEELCHAIR USERS

THE CITY OF MIAMI DOES NOTHING TO ADDRESS THIS CRISIS

The war on people with disabilities is alive and well in Miami — the adopted hometown I love that never loves me back.

Discarded dockless scooters block sidewalks, curb ramps and safe mobility for wheelchair users.

But the City of Miami and its Downtown Development Authority does nothing to address this crisis.

Dockless scooters and bikes endangering people with disabilities is the rule, not the only exception in Miami.

A lack of leadership and regulation means wheelchair users are blocked from access to work, home and urban mobility.

 There are dozens of ways of keeping dockless scooters from blocking and injuring people with disabilities, but Miami does nothing and enforces never.

Simple solutions:

*Create 1 scooter corral per block.

*Block users that dump them in dangerous spots.

*Confiscate scooters blocking access.

*Fine companies

City of Miami to people with disabilities: Drop Dead.

Lack of leadership and competency say it all.

When your city allows scooters and bikes to block curb ramps, sidewalks and bus stops — it is telling you it favors the profits of companies over your life, safety and dignity.

Sadly in Miami, where our leaders favor profit over people 100% of the time, these devices injure, endanger and block people with disabilities daily.