The image is of a restaurant restroom. Which restaurant? Doesn't matter. The picture is so typical it could represent dozens of restaurant restrooms in Louisville; thousands nationwide.
It's clear the folks here were thinking of access -- or at least the contractors putting the restroom in were thinking of it. The state building code's access requirements have things spelled out for restroom access.
Yup. Sure do.
"Reach ranges" are spelled out in the code. Nothing -- like towel dispensers, for example -- is supposed to be higher than 48 inches from the floor.
Somebody wasn't using a tape measure when they installed this towel dispenser.
But this restroom is far from unique. In fact, too-high towel dispensers are common in "accessible" restrooms. Why?
I can't figure that one out. Seems like such an easy thing.
Nobody cares? But why would whoever is putting together an accessible restroom WANT to put a towel dispenser so high? Don't they think? Don't they REALIZE that someone who has limited arm mobility would have a hard time reaching this thing?
Don't they think disabled people need to use towels in the restroom?
Don't they think?
Why not?
Too-common problems: towelbar height
Emperor's New Clothes of Restaurant Access
I've been meaning to post a link to the amazing Sept. 12 New York Times article by its Dining critic Frank Bruni about the access -- or lack thereof -- of NYC restaurants. I call it "amazing" because it's the first I've ever seen of a major news article noting the problem of places which insist they ARE "accessible" being anything but.
It's a phenomenon that's all too familiar to diners who use wheelchairs -- but it's rarely talked about: " the ways in which even the most accessible restaurants . . . fail to accommodate disabled diners as well as they do the rest of us."
Bruni's article, When Accessibility Isn’t Hospitality, continued:
I check on restaurants’ wheelchair accessibility every week for my reviews for The Times, but even I didn’t appreciate the obstacles people without full mobility face until I dined with one of them, which is what I did after Jill Abramson, managing editor of The New York Times, was injured in an accident last May. . . .
So while she was progressing from wheelchair to crutches to cane, I went with her to four restaurants that said they were at least partially accessible to see how true that was.
At most of them we encountered hosts and servers who seemed earnestly determined to be as helpful as they could.
But we also encountered unhappy surprises and challenging circumstances. And we learned what disabled diners know too well: eating out is almost never easy. [Emphasis added.]
Bruni's article may have elicited more responses from readers than any other restaurant article he's ever written.
In the emails he received, he wrote in his blog, readers
spoke to how frustrated they feel and how grateful they were to have their reality recognized. Many of the readers who wrote me drew special attention to the discrepancy between the promises of accessibility that restaurants make and the actual experience of visiting those restaurants.
Here are some snips from those emails:
I’m delighted you’ve brought these problems to public awareness. The restaurants that irk me most are the ones that claim to be accessible when I call ahead but in fact have a small flight of steps just to get in the door —steps, no doubt, that the walking person who answered the telephone had never really noticed before.
And
[I]t never fails to amuse me at how easily the word “accessible” is tossed out. As you proved, that term is very much open to interpretation, especially when you aren’t the one disabled.
And
I too have found that in N.Y. most often restaurants say they are accessible and they really are not. Might just be one step but that’s enough to hinder movement.
And
It is amazing how little we think of these things until someone we love is humiliated and distressed at what is supposed to be a pleasant occasion-eating out at a lovely restaurant.(Read the responses here.)
These readers are all pointing out an issue that I'll be returning to in coming days: That "partial" access can end up being truly the same as "no access" -- and perhaps I'll get into a bit about why people complain so infrequently about the problem.
This issue of access is a true sleeper issue -- and it's only going to become bigger as society ages.
While Louisville has a larger proportion of newly built structures housing restaurants, structures that DO MEET access codes, in fact many of our most trendy dining spots, along the Frankfort Ave. and Bardstown Rd. corridors, exhibit the same problems Bruni writes about in Manhattan eateries.
We can do something about the problem here. But will we?
What to do about blocked access?
Michelle of consuming louisville has posted a comment about the problems wheelchair users have in the Highlands with cars parking up on the sidewalks on side streets, making the sidewalks impassable.
Cars are a problem -- so are bike racks, bikes, news boxes, big planters, benches bolted to the sidewalk, not to mention those ever-popular outdoor tables in front of coffee shops. Funny how everything can seem to be put onto the sidewalk except ramps. IPL won't permit them to extend onto sidewalks because they block the right of way. (See my blog entry that touches on that.)
Michelle writes,
When cars are preventing access do you know who we should call to address the problem? In the past I've called the local police district but they seem less than pleased with such calls.
I know who I'd call, if I were in a wheelchair: I'd call TV news.
It's sad but amazing how much doesn't change unless a public spotlight shines on it.
I know folks in chairs who have complained repeatedly about folks parking illegally in those accessible parking spots. One guy who use to frequent Jillian's back when it was over there around Baxter used to say he complained so much that the cops came to regard him as a troublemaker -- but the spots never did get cleared.
What's this about?
Many folks don't believe that there's real discrimination against wheelchair users -- it's just that folks don't know what to do, or that providing access costs too much. But too many tales like this one make me think that belief is just a bit simplistic.
Back to the good old organizing tactics:
One person in a wheelchair is a whiner, but two or 3 of them, particularly if they have a crew of supporters, can really make a significant point. That's especially true in Louisville, I think, where lots of wheelchair activism doesn't occur so much -- not like, say, in Denver or Chicago.
Look at the protests Corey Nett's treatment engendered.
I'd love to see similar protests over these impassable sidewalks.
Accessible Bluegrass Brewing in St. Matthews
I've been to this brewpub/microbrewery many times (Bluegrass Brewing Co., 3929 Shelbyville Rd.), but I've not been throughout the entire facility. Mostly I gravitate to the big back room.
As far as I can tell the place is pretty wheelchair friendly. The entrance is flat; the sidewalk is ramped. The restrooms, right at the front, are accessible. And there are plenty of tables and fairly wide aisles between them.
It's fair to note that there are some sections of this biggish brewpub that are up steps -- different rooms.
But for sure you'd be able to eat, drink and be merry here from a wheelchair.
No sand on Sahara!
Today's LouisvilleHotBytes blog in Leo featured the Sahara Mediterranean Café (3701 Lexington Rd.), so a friend and I went right away to check it out.
Totally, totally accessible. Beautifully so -- from the flat entrances -- both of 'em, front and back -- to the parking, to the tables, to the counter, to the restroom.
A new building, of course. But since that doesn't always translate to wonderful wheelchair access, it's good to note when it does.
Food's great, too.
Lack of curb ramps force wheelchairs into street
This a.m.'s C-J brought us the Highlands/Crescent Hill Neighhborhoods weekly pullout, with its story New sidewalks coming to Brownsboro Road. And there was a photo of wheelchair user Kay Olges tooling down the very nice sidewalk, with its very nicely sloped curb ramps, along Payne in front of the Clifton Center. No complaints about these sidewalks from us.
However, it made me think about an issue that gets too little attention, and so I thought a blog entry was in order.
In Martha Elson's story, I read that Olges was
able to get to most places using the sidewalks and streets, but she said some sidewalks are uneven and more asphalt is needed at some railroad crossings.
That made me think of how wheelchair users are often forced into the streets due to the lack of curb ramps. It's a problem nationwide -- one that Elson's story did not touch on, except by inference. Maybe Olges didn't mention to Elson how dangerous that is.
But wheelchair users have been killed because of the lack of sidewalks. Stories about that here and here.
New restaurants, not always accessible
Doesn't the Americans with Disabilities Act say that new places of business have to be accessible?
Yeah, it does.
But that doesn't seem to matter much. New restaurants open all the time with steps in the front.
Sometimes, turns out, they actually have a ramp -- in the back. But they don't have any sign out front letting you know that there is a ramp in the back.
I call that "inaccessible."
Tuscany - an accessible Italian restaurant
Today I ate at a new Italian restaurant, called Tuscany, in the shopping center just west of Wal-Mart on the southwest corner of New Cut Road and Outer Loop. It was nicely accessible -- no automatic door, of course -- virtually no restaurant has that -- but it had a nice flat entrance and was roomy inside.
Food was good, too.