I stopped in at a fish-sandwich place the other day for lunch and encountered a "fountain drinks" counter way too high to reach.
It's not the first time I've encountered one like this -- the other one I recall is also at a fish place, but they're everywhere.
The counter all the stuff sits on is simply too high. They've got that soft-drink dispenser unit, those big urns, the cups and the napkins, straws and stuff all up on a counter that's probably about 4 feet off the ground to start with.
What's the point? There are plenty of fountain drink stations in fast-food restaurants that are on counters much lower. So what could possibly be the thinking of those who install these high counters?
Well, there it is -- no thinking.
What it tells me is that, once again, nobody -- not contractors, not owners, certainly not building or restaurant inspectors -- pays the slightest bit of attention to the fact that these things are supposed to be at an ACCESSIBLE height.
"Oh, they'll always help you get your drink for you!"
That's the response to complaints, isn't it?
But it's not the right response. The right response would be to put the counter lower in the first place.
Fountain drinks from on high
'They could have all been accessible!'
In past months I have had occasion to be driving west on Muhammad Ali to the medical complex. Driving there, I pass the massive construction project going on just to the east of downtown Louisville. It's officially called the Clarksdale HOPE VI Revitalization. It's the old Clarksdale housing projects, torn down and being rebuilt.
The blocks and blocks of buildings going up seem to be townhouses. Lovely designs -- don't look like the old low-income "projects" of my youth -- and of course, that's part of the idea behind all this.
Except.
Except they all have steps. Just like brownstones in New York. Steps up to the front door. Steps as far as I could see, creating the streetscape. Steps.
Now I have no doubt that the grand poobahs in charge of this are complying with all "laws" -- I'm sure there's a percentage set aside for "the handicapped" by law.
That's not what I'm getting at. I'm getting why we continue -- continue!! -- to build housing stock so that if we get older we're going to be forced into a nursing home, out of our homes. Continue to build places like this so if you've got somebody in the family who's in an accident or has diabetes and loses their legs you're going to have to be on a waiting list for one of the very few of those "percentages" that are accessible.
Why does it have to be this way? Is there no vision?
Every morning when I drove past this array of homes with steps, I could hear my friend Eleanor Smith of Atlanta's voice: "And they could have all been accessible!"
Yes, they could have.
Eleanor is the mother of the concept known as visitability. You don't hear much about it in Louisville.
These units I've been passing on Muhammad Ali look to me as though they're inspired by what's called the New Urbanism -- one of the silliest examples of which is Norton Commons, way the heck out in what used to be called the boonies.
And to hear Eleanor tell it, the New Urbanists simply don't like access.
'Separate-but-equal' sinks
Couldn't resist getting a photo of this "handicap access solution" I found recently. The venue isn't important. The concept is important.
The concept is "separate but equal." You have a restroom in your building. It's supposed to have levers for the sink faucets. So far, so good. You're OK with that. . . But, note, only for one of the sinks. The "special" one.
"Special" has done more to harm the cause of access than about anything I can think of.
Why aren't all restroom stalls larger, for example? Why does the stall door open outward only on the "accessible" one?
Aside from accessible parking, which really does mean spots need to be set aside, close in, I can think of very very few instances when it doesn't make more sense to just make EVERY COMPONENT accessible:
- Flat entrance, rather than ramps-and-steps
- Automatic doors, rather than manual doors and one "special" door with a "button"
- Light switches lowered throughout
- Wider hallways throughout. . .
The list can go on and on.
One benefit of the avoidance of "special" -- that is to say, integration -- is that if you can't segregate out those items that are "special," it's much harder to point to this or that as being "too costly" -- as in, "That ramp cost us xxx" or "That special automatic door cost xxx" -- if the building is simply "barrier-free" then it's just "barrier-free." (You don't hear the term "barrier-free" as much nowadays. Wonder why?)
The other benefit of integration is, of course, the avoidance of stigma. If it's all the same, no one need feel embarrassed by needing the "special" entrance, toilet stall, menu, seating...
Enuf said.
I'd love to get some comments about ths idea.
Website provides access guide -- to Chicago
Illinois state government has just released an "access guide" to Chicago -- Easy Access Chicago. It's both a website and a book, and it currently "provides information for disabled visitors about more than 300 sites in the Chicago area," according to the press material provided at the news conference when it was unveiled.
Access guides can be really useful -- or really frustrating. Of course it all depends on how comprehensive it is and how accurate it is. I've found far too many guides of this sort either list very few places or, more often, list places that in fact aren't as they are described in the guide.
How can this happen? It can happen when those who gather the information are either lazy or sloppy -- or worse, when they rely on the venue to rate themselves as to whether they're accessible or not. One of the tactics some less-than-competent access guide groups use is the telephone survey.
"Hi, I'm working for the Access Our City guide -- can you tell me if you're accessible to disabled people?"
"Why certainly, ma'am, we are accessible."
"Thank you!"
Of course, the proprietor didn't mention the 2 steps at the entrance ("nobody's ever had any problem -- but we rarely have anyone in here in wheelchairs anyway") -- or the restroom that's down a hall too narrow to allow a wheelchair to get through.
So, of course, the only real way to prepare such a guide is to send out surveyers with a checklist and a tape measure.
I don't know how Chicago's Open Door organization did it -- they're the ones who created the guide.
The website is promising, although I find the navigation overly arcane. Why not just list all the kinds of places they've rated -- restaurants, hotels, etc. -- on the home page and let you click on them? You have to click on the navigation tab called Access Information to get to a page that lists the criteria they used; you still have to click on more navigation bar links (on the right this time) to get to any info about restaurants, lodgings or whatever. And even then, you have to get all the way to the bottom and find another little link that gives the true access specifics of any individual place.
Still, despite my nitpicking of this site, it's a great idea for a resource that could be far more useful than this one-person powered blog we're doing here.
Louisville should have an Easy Access Louisville guide, right?
When you google "Access Louisville" you don't find anything about disability access. It seems the name Access Louisville was long ago appropriated by Metro Government for PR purposes.
Oh well.
Access, interrupted
Have you been to Dean Corbett's new restaurant, "An American Place"? It's out in the 'burbs, in front of Costco, at 5050 Norton Healthcare Blvd. The building is a 150-year-old farmhouse, completely renovated -- I had wondered what the access would be like with this kind of a renovation.
But the access inside looked very good to me the night we were there with friends.
You enter the restaurant from the big front porch, and of course big farmhouse steps lead up to that porch. But, indeed, there is a ramp off to the side. A fine ramp; a regulation ramp. It takes you up to the porch over on the side, where you then travel across the porch -- about 30 feet, maybe -- to the front door.
But...
(And yeah, isn't there always a but??)
When we visited, it was cold, cold, cold -- naturally; it's winter! Yet on that front porch, despite outside temperatures that assured there'd be no outdoor dining for months yet, were all the tables and chairs that will grace it for eating out on the porch come warm weather.
And there's no way in the world someone in a wheelchair could navigate through that gantlet of tables and chairs. They're way too close together.
It's bad now, but can you imagine it when there are folks sitting at all those tables?
"Excuse me, can I get past?"
"Pardon me, can you pull your chair up?"
"I'm sorry, can you move for a moment?"
I can't imagine any wheelchair user coming to Corbett's and feeling OK about even trying to run that gantlet.
As with so much when it comes to access, I assume it's oversight. So... what's going to be done about it?
If something isn't done, the fully accessible restaurant is going to still pretty much be offlimits to the wheelchair crowd -- that is, those who can even afford this very pricey but wonderful venue.
Too-common problems: towelbar height
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?
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?
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."
Introductions all around
I decided to start this project because I didn't think there was a website that folks could go to and find out just what's accessible and what's not here in Louisville, Ky.
The idea is really simple: start a blog, post entries about places I've gone to, letting folks know the lowdown on wheelchair access.
I'm Mary Johnson, the initial Grand Poobah of this blog, and I've been around disability rights in Louisville almost since it began about 400 years ago -- no; really -- but since the 70s. An old-timer, in other words. I've covered disability rights stuff for a long time, and I type pretty fast, so I thought this would be a natural thing for me to do since I'm currently involved in running a business and not doing much disability rights wise. This blog doesn't take too much of my time (since I type fast!!)
I don't do photos well, though -- and the main thing I do when I go out is go to restaurants. So this site is going to be really top-heavy with restaurant access stuff. . . .
Unless you folks reading help out. And I really really want help!
HERE'S HOW: just post a comment below (or on any entry), telling about a good (or bad) place for wheelchair access. Please be really specific about what makes it accessible -- or inaccessible.
I'd love you to leave your name, but you don't have to. If you're "anonymous" and if I don't personally know the place you're writing about, then I'll have to get it checked out before I blog about it.
If you've got photos, even better. You can set up a blog and post them and we'll link to them, or we'll figure out some other way to get them on here.
Tell folks about this site and please, please contribute!