To think that any one who designs a town, building, theme park or attraction should have to spend the day navigating it in a wheelchair?

[Flufferblub]

Needed a wheelchair on some days since my early 30s, and the experience has been eye opening. Some spaces seem well designed such as airports, but others it feels like disabled people are a complete after thought. Even in new places that have just been built in the past few years. You can understand in historic towns and places, but if some where has been designed and built in the 21st century, you'd think that they'd put a button to open the disabled toilet door.

The people who design and run these places need to spend a day getting around in a wheelchair. Design it with wheelchairs in mind first, and everyone else will be alright. Who doesn't like a ramp and automatic doors any way?

I remember going to view a new build house a few years ago and a huge deal was made about how the houses had extra wide doorways to allow for wheelchair access. But nearly every single house style had step access to even get in it! And they were really narrow and often at an angle so you couldn’t even install a ramp.

Yes, absolutely, and they should have to navigate it blindfold with a white cane as well. There are more disabilities than those that require the use of a wheelchair. The entire world forgets us blind people exist, it’s like they’re blind and can’t see us, it winds me up. I’m all for disability awareness and making adjustments for wheelchair users and other disabilities, absolutely it should be a priority, it would just be nice if we were considered as well, and not ignored, forgotten about, excluded and way off the bottom of the list.

in the town where I commute to to work, they have clearly done the minimum tick list of adjustments, tactile paving, rotating cones on the bottom of light control boxes etc. Unfortunately the tactiles tend to be badly situated on corners and almost impossible for blind people to use without walking themselves out into the middle of a busy junction. There’sl only one rotating cone at each crossing, despite there being two light control boxes,, all pretty poorly situated, one on each side of the poorly situated tactile paving, and the cones all seem to have been placed for the use of a left-handed white cane user. The crossings are dangerous and impractical and I don’t feel safe using them at all. There are a couple that are completely unusable they’re so dangerous, I’d end up dead in a week. It makes me so angry, those things are supposed to be there to help visually impaired people but they’ve done it with absolutely no care or thought and made the whole place much more difficult and dangerous.

sadly I suspect we’ll all have to whistle, because developers and companies are far more interested in cost and aesthetics than they are in actually accommodating people with disabilities. Twas ever thus and it will no doubt remain so.

Ramps aren't suitable for all accessible needs, steps can be easier to navigate if you're unsteady on your feet.

Those bumps at the opening of doors which are uncomfortable for wheelchair users can be there for white stick users so they can feel where the opening is.

Adjusting things down for those under 5 ft can make it inaccessible for those who are taller (or in big, motorised wheelchairs as these tend to be higher)

There's no doubt some things need to be made more accessible like making sure the accessible toilet is actually big enough to get a wheelchair in but some accessible features clash with each other

I think my point is that they might not turn out to be unnecessary. And it may not be obvious to people moving through the building why it’s necessary.

There is a hotel near me that claims it can't put a lift or accessible entrance in because they are, "a listed building" which is rubbish, and they built an extension of new bedrooms that are on the ground floor with a fire exit from the corridor on the ground floor.

So they actually have a door from the corridor to the outside on the ground floor but you can only use it to get out of the building.

And as @ButWhatAboutTheBees explains, sometimes the lip is more accessible for one group of users but less accessible for another.

Ensuring accessibility for everyone can provide impossible. Especially with budgetary constraints. If we set the bar so high that no one can ever afford to build or rennovate anything, only those with no choice to do so will even bother. That helps no one.

I have been sent on a training course to give me a small idea of this. It was illuminating - I hope I did bring what I learned to work. (Public sector).
As a Guide Leader a few years ago we did several weeks of activities all around disability awareness, we had a talk and visit from Guide dogs and lots of other things. For a while one of our Guides was in a wheelchair and finding things to do as a group which included her was much less easy away from where we met (which was fully accessible).

An ex of mine had to do similar exercises when a student. They found how hard it was to navigate their own campus with a disability let alone making their way around the city. That was 20+ years ago so it's likely that some of the people on the course have gone out into the workplace and been involved in creating brand new buildings which are still inaccessible.

I can imagine lots of reasons why things might be excluded/forgotten during the design and build process like an architect with a "vision" prioritising style over function or the groupthink of committees. And of course money. But I wish more of them would apply what people like your DF taught them.

Im always shocked by new buildings with poor accessibility. I used to work in an office which was built in about 2000. There was literally no access except for stairs. We simply couldn't have had anyone in a wheelchair working there (or visiting, but we didn't really have visitors).

The top floor was reached by a spiral staircase, so anyone with sight loss would probably have struggled too.

I always wondered how it was ever approved.

I regularly have to use crutches and I find ramps worse than steps. I can deal with steps! I'm unsteady on ramps and have fallen.

I agree with a previous poster that tactile paving can be a pain but the reason for it being there is important.

It's hard to try and meet everyone's needs. I don't think there's an easy answer.

I am ashamed I only realised how inaccessible how many places were until I started pushing a pram- prams which are maybe more manoeuvrable and easier for other people to assist with. I’m often in places thinking how on earth is a wheelchair user meant to navigate this! I am near 3 tube stations and not one with step free access! Or when people park on the road and you can’t fit through, or those bloody lime bikes taking up the whole pavement! I know making somewhere accessible for everyone is impossible but absolutely agree and am surprised anyone could have voted Yabu!

There's so much talk of trying to get disabled people back in to work, then they build buildings that are supposedly accessible but aren't very well designed. There is definitely an opportunity here! Actually disabled disability assessors to work with architects?!

YANBU OP. I remember when I was at school we did a project on accessibility and I had to go in to our local town and assess various shops. I have a disabled sibling that uses a wheelchair so I was only too familiar with some of the issues.

The whole "well we've got a ramp" doesn't really work when a) the ramp is so steep you needs the muscles of The Rock to wheel yourself up; or b) when you get to the top of the ramp there's a dodgy high threshold across the doorway, or a door just wide enough to skin your knuckles.

I agree. I was thinking about this yesterday in work. As you come out of the lift on my floor you need to walk through 2 sets of double doors. The first set has a touch button for wheelchair users but the second set doesn't?! Makes no sense.

It's not just the design of the buildings that needs looking at. It's also the way people treat the facilities. There's been loads of times I've had to complain that the accessible toilet is unusable as it's being used for storage. Or has things outside that means the door can't open wide enough

yabu

it's about standards and enforcement. that's what you need to concentrate on.

but I agree that standards are not as good as they could be and enforcement is not a priority it seems.

and edi seem to have only one topic as priority atm which is very frustrating

Reminds me of the wheelchair accessible loo in my local shopping centre (which only opened in 2017). Whoever the genius was that designed it put the toilet paper dispenser (one of those huge circular things that hold several rolls) so far back that you have to twist on the toilet seat and reach backwards to get at it, and stuck the soap dispenser in the corner, hemmed in by the basin and the hand dryer, so nobody sitting in a wheelchair - even a small one - can reach it.

I completely agree that all disabilities need to be accommodated of course. I was just speaking from my perspective as a wheelchair user. But who's going to be fucked off by a ramp and automatic doors? Or better yet, a smooth level with automatic doors.

My favourite is Shadwell station, where the lifts take you to a mezzanine just above the platform, then you're on your own to make it down the stairs 🙃

Or Holland Park where they spent months refurbing the toilets only to reopen them having removed the baby change from the disabled toilets and having them only in the main toilets where, you guessed it, you need to climb steep stairs.

I guess disabled people can't have or care for children 🥲

Absolutely. But I think one of the problem is almost all towns and lots of buildings, particularly public ones like schools and hospitals aren't designed from scratch. They are added to slowly with lots of bad choices to be addressed and undone.

@SerendipityJane I wonder if we live near to the same hospital? I was taking a relative to hospital recently and as he is in a wheelchair had to time the run through the revolving door so we didn't get stuck in it. Absolutely crazy. Pushing the wheelchair and making a mental note of where the dropped kerbs are has made me much more sympathetic to wheelchair users (and angry about people who park on pavements so there isn't enough room to get past).

They're developing part of town. Some eejit has put bollards in the middle of one of the paths which you won't be able to get through with a pram / wheelchair / mobility scooter.

Ramps are harder than steps for people with prosthetic legs I believe, and possibly some visual impairments (hard to gauge the steepness of the ramp).

So there should be both.

Yes there should be both 👍