Trapped. I can’t tell you how often I can’t get in or out of buildings, many of which are technically accessible.
The number of obstacles that show up is…astounding. I would never have thought about it before I became disabled. I have been trapped outside in the pouring rain hoping for someone else to be going into the building I’m standing in front of and let me in. I have had to wait for someone to finish what they’re doing and come unlock a gate. I have been stuck outside because the electric door opener was disabled because it was very cold out and someone decided that having the door opener working let in too much cold air.
First, there’s the most typical one – a heavy door. Now, I understand that most folks in wheelchairs don’t like having the good samaritan rush over and open doors for them. They’ve got their own way to get through the door that they’re quite used to, thankyouverymuch. Coming to their ‘rescue’ actually means getting in their way and often making the door navigation harder. It also means burdening them with the expectation that they’re going to be tremendously grateful for the insignificant action.
In light of this, I am often hesitant to point out that I DO need doors opened for me. Simply opening doors is a risk for me – will I dislocate my fingers, my wrist, my shoulder? Pull a muscle in my back? Opening doors is one of the most frequent sources of injury for me. So for me, having someone pull open a door is a tremendous help…but should I have to wait for that?
You see, many businesses seem to just assume that we PWDs will be happy with inconveniences and waits for people to come fix things.
The worst case of this that I have spotted in my area are the shopping cart traps.
I live in an urban area. Understandably, this means that stores deal with theft of their carts.
The best way to deal with this, as far as I can see, is to use the magnetic wheel locks on carts. You do this, and you can protect your carts without actually inconveniencing anyone significantly. The drawback of course is that these systems are expensive to put in.
There are 2 common lowtech solutions.
The first is the tall pole attached to the cart. It goes up too high to go through the door, so the carts are trapped in the store. For me, this is a bit of an inconvenience – crutches and carrying bags do not blend well, so I end up very awkward on my trip to the car, and have a fairly significant risk of tangling myself up and stumbling. However, it is so much better than the other low-tech solution that I do not complain.
The second solution is to set up a little area surrounded by posts outside of the supermarket. Now here’s the thing: if the posts are close enough together to keep shopping carts in, they are also close enough together to keep wheelchairs in (or out). These relatively narrow spaces are also difficult for people with crutches or service dogs to navigate, and can be very confusing for the service dogs.
Okay, so places like this obviously have to have a gate that opens wider. But because they are terrified of losing their shopping carts…the gates are padlocked closed. This means that a PWD in a wheelchair has to ask someone going into the store to please inform an employee that they need to be let in. I’m sure you can imagine how long this can take.
In theory, to the letter of the law, this place passes as accessible, but is it really accessible if PWDs have to request admission and wait for someone to come allow them to enter? It’s tremendously unwelcoming and makes a person feel like a second class citizen. Everyone else can just walk in, but PWDs have to sit there and wait, and hope that the customer who said they’d tell an employee to let them in remembers, and that the employee remembers and has time to do it…
When I recently addressed a grocery store about this, they offered the fact that a local regular could request a key to the gate as ‘evidence’ that there wasn’t a problem – obviously PWD customers who are not locals just don’t matter.
Pseudo-accessibility is unfortunately common and hurtful to deal with. We need real accessibility, and real treatment as human beings. This is a place where the law will not do anything so we, as individuals, must express our feelings about this terrible practice so that it will change.
And it can be changed. One of my law school buildings now has an electric door opener it didn’t have before, simply because I spoke up and sent a lot of emails. We can make change happen, but it requires making people who are AB understand that we need it.
Fight ableism and demand equality!
You raise great points. Pseudo-accessibility – yes, it’s common. I also need help with doors and understand what you’re saying about that. Sitting out in the rain waiting for someone to open a door just isn’t what I’d do unless I REALLY couldn’t open it. Yet people ask “What are you doing out here?” I’m always tempted to say “Trying to open the door with mind control/telepathy.”
Glad I found your blog today as part of BAAD.
It is, appallingly so.
The issue with the doors has been such a frustration. The door to my law school building was not ‘fixed’ – given an electronic opener – until the university got a new president whose mantra is ‘make it work’. The last president would tell you that you had to submit the right form to committee A, who met once a month and would consider the proposition. If committee A approved it, it would go to office B to be scheduled, and it would not be a priority slot it got scheduled into. It could take literally a year to get issues even addressed.
As I’m very temperature-intolerant, getting stuck out in the rain could be torture and take away a great deal of my energy that I would have used towards actually getting my schoolwork done, and getting to class, and so on.
~Kali
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Thankyou for writing this.
x
I’m a fellow EDS-er and I know exactly what you’re talking about! At my previous workplace, all the doors were keycarded and the card only unlocked the door for ten seconds. When I was perfectly mobile, it wasn’t too bad to get through in time even if I was carry something. If I needed to use my stick, I struggled to get the door unlocked, the key somewhere safe and the door open before it re-locked. If I was carrying a cup of tea, it was pretty much impossible. I always had to get someone to come with me as door opener because there were three doors between the kitchen and my desk.
And the canteen that was down ten steps with no elevator did not help matters…
My new place isn’t too bad, but the doors are incredibly heavy. The handle also has to be depressed so far that I regularly snap my wrist out getting the handle down far enough to open the thing and then pull it open. Drives me crazy and I have no idea how anyone would navigate the building in a wheelchair. The only good thing is that the lunch room is accessible without needing to navigate any steps 🙂
Aiya, doors are such a nuisance!
I’m currently contemplating going after making some of the interior doors in our buildings accessible, most important the doors into the main floor of the library. Crazy me, I’d like to be able to get into the places that I consistantly use most often without hurting myself!
Have you talked to your HR dept about the handle of the door being unmanagable? That, at least, they may be able to fix even if they can’t do anything about the weight of the doors.
The pounds of force required to open a door can often be managed with a very simple change of door hinge–there’s a device used to measure the pounds of force and in the U.S. ADA, it’s not to exceed 5 lbs. for an interior door. You might see if DDA has the same.
Yes, doors are difficult! That’s also a cause of serious injury for me.
Oooh, I hadn’t realized that the ADA dictated a 5 pound limit on interior doors. I’m sure some of ours exceed that, particularly the doors into the library.
A great many others I’m sure do not, but my shoulders and hands are in such poor shape that I still cannot open them without risking injury *sigh*
~Kali
This is a very good post.
No amount of legislation will ever make this ok (though it will help.) Like you say, it’s a case of changing attitudes.
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Kali –
The thing I like the best about this post isn’t your well thought out prose or your speaking up combined with a plan of action (rather than simply pouting), but your fortitude at having this problem in the first place.
You are trapped outside of buildings – imagine how many disabled people trap themselves *inside* their own houses, simply because they’re too afraid, to frustrated, to alone to deal with the problems you are so strongly taking head on.
It’s people like you that make sure the rest of us have the ADA.
– Miss Waxie
http://acomiclifeindeed.wordpress.com
Hi Kali,
Thanks for the great post!
I recently had to go to my local US embassy (lost passport – so annoying) and I know they have to take special security precautions and everything, but you would not believe how heavy the (interior!) doors were. Talk about lack of accessibility. If I were to go today I am absolutely sure that I would not be able to open them.
Funny thing, I have my BA and MA in Architecture, and my graduate thesis was actually based on ADA/Universal Design. (Who knew back then it would become such a personal issue down the road?) I’ll try to blog about it sometime…
Cheers,
RA Guy
Those shopping cart traps are a terror for me (I use a wheelchair), and I often run into lifts and doors that are supposed to make buildings accessible but require keys. Which are located inside the buildings I can’t get in. Irony: I suppose I’m supposed to laugh at it, but sometimes it makes me boiling mad. This is such an informative post !
Oh how true that is! To get my card-key for the back door of the main law school building, I had to get into the building where I had to go through 2 doors without openers, and then back into the main building via the I think 12 steps in. (Well, they have openers NOW, but they didn’t at the time) I’m sure they must’ve had another system for folks in ‘chairs, as you obviously couldn’t go up the stairs into the main building! Probably had someone walk over and key-card in the back door.
And don’t get me started on the fact that we have to go in the back door. It’s rather insulting that everyone ELSE can go in through the main door, up the steps, and me? I have to go around the side, down a ramp, and into the back door. And on days when I’m having trouble walking, that extra block of walking is more than I can do, and then I have to make that lousy choice – stumble up the stairs and hope I don’t fall, or walk the extra block and hope it doesn’t hurt too much.
I have a friend with a disability, and he’s in subsidized housing, and they put him on the fourth floor of a building with no elevator. He walks with a cane. It’s like these people figure since he’s disabled, he’ll never leave his appartment anyway, so why not put him on the fourth floor?
Ugh, what nonsense! I know people just fail to get what disability means, but that’s just completely insane.
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