davidgillon | (no subject)

2 hour meeting with the Rochester High Street Traders forum and the councillor for the high street ward this morning. It actually went well, and we got our point across that they just hadn't understood what is an issue for wheelchair users. I'm not 100% happy with their idea of putting ramps down as a solution to stalls blocking the pavement. They'll let wheelchairs have access, but they'll be a horrendous trip hazard, particularly for the VI community. I'm not convinced "well, all the stalllholders have £5m insurance" is the ideal response to a safety risk, but the councillor agreed it needs to be discussed with the Highways department.

But it's just as well I took my friend Sue along, both for the powerchair perspective, and because otherwise I might have punched someone. Every time I tried to explain why something was an issue for manual wheelchair users, one of the traders jumped in to cut me off and say "No, it isn't". You can imagine how well that went down with me. Apparently it isn't entirely his fault, it's an aspect of his vascular dementia, but it was making it almost impossible to get our message across. Fortunately Sue recognised what was going on and dragged him off into a side-discussion.

Best moment:
Sue to Cllr: We've not met, but you may know my name.
Cllr: Hmm?
Sue: Sue G
Cllr: {Goes white}

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Sue G has magic powers, then?

I'm glad that she kept you from throttling people. I agree that adding temporary ramps is never a good idea, but if we ran the world, we'd probably drop over dead from exhaustion.

Not just temporary ramps, but temporary ramps they want the stallholders to put up and take down when they see us coming. It's such a blatant liability issue.

The thing with Sue is she's one of these people with boundless campaigning energy. On top of a full time civil service job, she's got a hate crime reporting project launching at the start of next week (local centres so people don't need to go to the police). Then there's all the disability education work she does with the police. And all that pales beside the stuff she does at a national level on rail accessibility. As part of which the committee she sits on just took a look (at her instigation) at the council's fully developed plans for the redevelopment of Chatham Train Station (which is an accessibility nightmare) and told them to go away and start again. Highlights she mentioned to me: a proposed drop off area for disabled people arriving by car or taxi that didn't actually have enough room to deploy a ramp.... So probably not the council's favorite person right now ;)

Just in passing she laid into the councillor on parking at Rochester Station, which is brand new, and fully accessible, but was designed without any passenger drop-off area, so people use the disabled parking as a drop-off instead as that's the closest point. She was actually throwing stats at him on how many parking fines had been issued and for what.

And I nobbled him on Costa Coffee when we passed it, on how on earth they got permission from the planning committee to leave a 6" step at the entrance when they gutted the rest of the building, meaning it was legally required to have been brought up to modern access standards.

ETA And at least one councillor now understands that cobbled, steep, driveways cannot be considered to be kerb cuts, and that actual disabled people consider Rochester High Street an accessibility nightmare because of the paving and steet furniture. I mean, what kind of an idiot puts a grating at the bottom of a kerb cut (twice) or a signpost at the top? And both Sue and I looked at the kerb cut opposite the signpost and said "Nope, not even trying that one" (too steep and unevenly pitched). Pointing out that Wheelchair Services actually changed my prescription to say larger front casters when I said I'd be using it on the High Street was a particularly effective point ;)

Edited 2017-11-17 13:26 (UTC)

Thanks for the thumbnail of Sue, who sounds like a mighty force for goodness and light.

I'm there with you re: wheelchair prescription. Many of the sidewalks in my neighborhood have wicked cross-slope. Particularly in wet/icy conditions (75% of the year) my first wheelchair would just spin in circles. People who get basic "Medicare power chairs" are totally S.O.L. when it comes to navigating those sorts of sidewalks.

Aiiiie! It's so infuriating that new shit gets poorly designed. I understand that disabled people are stigmatized, but it endlessly annoys me that planners/designers never think about flouting the fire codes, but are totally down with ignoring the accessibility requirements.

temporary ramps they want the stallholders to put up and take down when they see us coming.

Oh, for fucks sake! :(

a) wheelchair users aren't psychic: how are they going to know that the stallholders even HAVE ramps?

b) how are they supposed to get the stallholders attention in a busy noisy crowded environment

c) you just know the stallholders are going to be "just a minute" while they serve the next customer, and the next customer, and the next customer - we could be waiting 15 - 20 minutes for the ramp.

d) the stall holders are NOT going to know how to deploy the ramps so that they are
stable
secure
safe.

They are proposing to train the stallholders to put down the ramps.

But every other point you made, yeah, that.

Argh, temporary ramps.

Small rubber ones can be ****great****,

giant metal ones can be ...difficult.

I once used a temporary steep metal wheelchair ramp, and ended up with all my powerchairs left wheels hanging out into empty space off the side of the ramp, while the right wheels were on the ramp.

If I hadn't

a) been able to get out of my powerchair and stand up to reduce the weight of the powerchair, and to steer the powerchair while standing up;

b) had my partner with me to help wrangle the powerchair

I genuinely have NO IDEA how we would have fixed it without calling the fire brigade...

Even as it was, it was a massive physical undertaking,

plus the sudden wrenching stop/swing when the wheels fell off the ramp wrenched my lower back, injuring it, and I needed weeks and weeks of physiotherapy at $122 a visit...

The situation is a reasonably high kerb (everyone was surprised we considered them high, but we pointed out neither a manual chair with anti-tips, nor a powerchair with a kerb-climber could get up them), with a cobbled gutter, and then a pretty severe camber on the road.

For a wheelchair on its own, you're sitting at about a 20 degree down angle facing the kerb - which is why we can't get up, we're having to tilt an extra 20 degrees.

A 1m ramp could bridge kerb to camber, and actually give pretty much level access.

The problem is, customers at the stall will be standing in the gutter to be served. They'll turn to the side to walk away, the ramp will be below their eye-line, instant insurance claim.

Cllr: "We could do them without lips at the side, that would reduce the trip hazard"
Me: "Pretty sure the standard requires lips" (precisely to stop the falling off the edge scenario).
Cllr: "Oh, I'm not so sure*, but I'll have Highways check it out".

And that's without considering the VI community.
Utter Pain: "Oh, their dog will see it"
Me and Sue in horrified synchrony : "Only a tiny minority of people with visual impairments have guide dogs"
Utter Pain "{huff}I work with Guide Dogs for the Blind**" (and clearly have learnt nothing).

*There are different standards in different places, there may actually be scenarios where a lipless ramp is legal, so technically he may not be wrong, but it's by no means ideal.

** The charity that provides guide dogs in the UK. My guess would be he's liaised with them on dementia issues

Oh! That sounds terrifying.

It was!

My powerchair spun around rapidly when the left wheels went off the ramp, and I thought I was going to fall...

and then I thought the wheels had FALLEN OFF THE POWERCHAIR, instead of off the ramp, for a minute... which was HORRIFYING, because god knows how long CAEP (Community Equipment Program) would take to fix my powerchair if that happened... to save them money, they don't keep spare parts on hand, they order them as-needed, which takes ages...

Good on you and Sue G.

'm not convinced "well, all the stalllholders have £5m insurance" is the ideal response to a safety risk

*headdesk*