#inaccessible public transport

[queer-crip-grows]

It is incredibly difficult to hear so many people in the environmental movement continually lionise trains as the answer to all transport needs.

Being a full time mobility aid user with chronic fatigue and sensory overload makes use of public transport nightmarish.

If *real* efforts were made to make every train and every station fully wheelchair-accessible, *without* having to rely on unreliable or downright abusive station staff to put ramps up and, down, it would be a fantastic *start*. On good days, I *might* be able to use it for certain kinds of journeys.

However, it still wouldn’t solve the issues with sensory overload, or the problems getting to train stations from my home due to severe chronic pain and chronic fatigue.

If overdo it when I’m out, I *crash*. I cannot expend all my resources getting places. I then cannot do anything when I am there, and am unable to get home safely.

This is not that uncommon a problem. My issues are due to hEDS, POTS and autism, but they are incredibly common symptoms of Long COVID and ME/CFS resulting from Long COVID. So, unsurprisingly, folk with these needs are becoming increasingly common as Covid continues to rampage through the population. *Some of us need transportation we have control over*, and we need environmentally sustainable options to do this.

While expanding the public rail network, making it completely affordable (or, realistically, free) and making it fully accessible for wheelchair and other mobility aid users, children travelling alone from about age 8, elderly people with limited eyesight and hearing and parents travelling with infants would be an *incredible* start and massively increase usage of public transport, there are those of us who will always need at least part-time access to vehicles which can come to our homes and that *we* have control over, that are just as affordable as public transport, and the environmental movement needs to acknowledge this, plan for it, and stop treating it as selfishness, laziness and all the other “fun” terms disabled folk face constantly just for trying to live, especially outside our homes.

This is going to be even more the case if you want us to be able to work outside our homes and if you continue to be resistant to providing fully remote jobs that pay a living wage.

[gaytobymeres]

I will like driving. I will overcome my fear of driving. I will not let my fear of driving hold me back. I have a licence and passed my test. I have driven before. I can drive. The more I drive the less scary it will become. There is nothing to be scared of. Lots of people drive. Lots of bad drivers drive.

[disableddyke]

no one gives up their seats for cripples these days smh

[cultreslut]

im not behind im okay im not behind im okay i am simply living life at my own pace uhmmm killing myself

[jjeremysstash]

Haha, hummm, welcome to France, @thegemstonejedi ?

If you're in a big city you'll have public transports. Whether the system is good or not tend to depend on the region and the mayor. Like where I'm from, the system is bonkers like good like absolutely awesome and 100% electric for inside the city (some are still with essence for when they have to go further out), but that's because the mayor is an ecologist (the party) and because the region is globally rich. Also lots of tourists and border with Germany (you can even take the tram to go there, really cool). Where I currently live the metro is fine (fully automated), the tram is ok, the busses hummm the few time I took it it was bad.

We also had a system put in place "recently" in France that forbids too polluting cars to enter city centers so every cities kinda have to up their public transport game since it would mean some people can't get to work in the center depending on their car.

As for outside the city, there are trains and busses, but if it's in the middle of nowhere it gets non-existent too and you need a car.

And for half the subscription paid by the employer, it's for both cities (the one I'm from and the one I'm currently in). The first was a retirement house and the second was my university. I have no idea however if it's a global law or not. And for internships I have no idea how it works on that point because under 2 months you don't have to be paid (and also I never did any normal ones, the only ones I did was as a bénévole for archaeological digs because I needed to do several weeks to validate a class in uni).

.

Big point though is that France is much smaller so automatically the cities and villages are closer, so I guess that's why the public transports are better?

Paying only a part of the public transport subscription though has always been the normal thing to me because even in secondary school and high school, if you had to have a subscription because you lived too far, the department paid all of it (secondary school) or half of it (high school).

.

Also sorry I tend to ramble badly/infodump.

[fickdichistwarum]

That's pretty cute really.

we passed a sign in boring that said their sister city is dull, scotland

[roboticchibitan]

Today I had the spoons to hunt down my neighborhood council's email and send them an email that basically said "I would like to be able to leave my house but my neighborhood is not wheelchair accessible. Who do I talk to in order to get this fixed?" And I am planning on hunting down whoever is in charge of sidewalks in my neighborhood and getting real annoying about it.

My plan is to email them every time I want to go somewhere but can't.

Email 1: hello, please fix sidewalks so I can ride the bus places I am very passionate about public transportation and also being able to leave my house.

Email 200: This morning I woke up and wanted some delicious coffee to start my day, but upon getting out of bed I discovered we were out of coffee. I would've liked to take advantage of the city's public transportation system in order to support a local business like [examples of local coffee shops] but alas I cannot because I am a wheelchair user and my neighborhood is not wheelchair accessible. [Insert rest of arguement RE accessibility]. In conclusion I don't work I can keep these emails coming until I die please just fix my sidewalks.

This is going to be my new spite hobby. I was already mad about the abuse and general shit hand the disabled get dealt in our culture but then I started using a wheelchair and places like doctor's offices have been inaccessible to me so now I am filled with rage. So I am going to take that rage and do something with it. Like emailing my city counsel representatives at 2 am like "I crave a moonlight walk fix my sidewalks please."

[imaginarypasta]

it's like. i've been so insufferably lonely and bored since i moved and i don't know how to get out of it

[cookinguptales]

You know... I had an experience about two months ago that I didn't talk about publicly, but I've been turning it over and over in my mind lately and I guess I'm finally able to put my unease into words.

So there's a podcast I'd been enjoying and right after I got caught up, they announced that they were planning on doing a live show. It's gonna be near me and on the day before my birthday and I thought -- hey, it's fate.

But... as many of you know, I'm disabled. For me, getting to a show like that has a lot of steps. One of those steps involved emailing the podcasters to ask about accessibility for the venue.

The response I got back was very quick and very brief. Essentially, it told me to contact the venue because they had no idea if it was accessible or not.

It was a bucket of cold water, and I had a hard time articulating at the time quite why it was so disheartening, but... I think I get it a little more now.

This is a podcast that has loudly spoken about inclusivity and diversity and all that jazz, but... I mean, it's easy to say that, isn't it? But just talking the talk without walking the walk isn't enough. That's like saying "sure, we will happily welcome you in our house -- if you can figure out how to unlock the door."

And friends, my lock-picking set is pretty good by this point. I've been scouting out locations for decades. I've had to research every goddamn classroom, field trip, and assigned bookstore that I've ever had in an academic setting. I've had to research every movie theater, theme park, and menu for every outing with friends or dates. I spend a long time painstakingly charting out accessible public transportation and potential places to sit down every time I leave the house.

Because when I was in college, my professors never made sure their lesson plans were accessible. (And I often had to argue with them to get the subpar accommodations I got.) Because my friends don't always know to get movie tickets for the accessible rows. Because my dates sometimes leave me on fucking read when I ask if we can go to a restaurant that doesn't keep its restrooms down a flight of stairs.

I had one professor who ever did research to see if I could do all the coursework she had planned, and who came up with alternate plans when she realized that I could not. Only one. It was a medical history and ethics class, and my professor sounded bewildered as she realized how difficult it is to plan your life when you're disabled.

This woman was straight-up one of the most thoughtful, philosophical, and ethical professors I've ever had, one who was incredibly devoted to diversity and inclusion -- and she'd never thought about it before, that the hospital archives she wanted us to visit were up a flight of stairs. That the medical museum full of disabled bodies she wanted us to visit only had a code-locked back entrance and an old freight elevator for their disabled guests who were still breathing.

And that's the crux of it, isn't it? It's easy to theoretically accept the existence of people who aren't like you. It's a lot harder to actively create a space in which they can exist by your side.

Because here's what I did before I contacted the podcasters. I googled the venue. I researched the neighborhood and contacted a friend who lives in the area to help me figure out if there were any accessible public transportation routes near there. (There aren't.) I planned for over an hour to figure out how close I could get before I had to shell out for an uber for the last leg of the trip.

Then I read through the venue's website. I looked through their main pages, through their FAQs to see if there was any mention of accessibility. No dice. I download their packet for clients and find out that, while the base building is accessible, the way that chairs/tables are set up for individual functions can make it inaccessible. So it's really up to who's hosting the show there.

So then and only then I contacted the podcasters. I asked if the floor plan was accessible. I asked if all the seats were accessible, or only some, and whether it was open seating or not. Would I need to show up early to get an accessible seat, or maybe make a reservation?

And... well, I got the one-sentence reply back that I described above. And that... god, it was really disheartening. I realized that they never even asked if their venues were accessible when they were booking the shows. I realized that they were unwilling to put in the work to learn the answers to questions that disabled attendees might have. I realized that they didn't care to find out if the building was accessible.

They didn't know and they didn't care. That, I think, is what took the wind out of my sails when they emailed me back. It's what made me decide that... yeah, I didn't really want to go through the trouble of finding an accessible route to the venue. I didn't want to have to pay an arm and a leg to hire a car to take me the last part of the journey. I didn't want to make myself frantic trying to figure out if I could do all that and still make the last train home.

If they didn't care, I guess I didn't either.

If they'd apologized and said that the only venue they could get was inaccessible, I actually would have understood. I know that small shows don't always get their pick of venues. I get it. I even would have understood if they'd been like "oh dang, I actually don't know -- but I'll find out."

But to be told that they didn't know and didn't intend to find out... oof. That one stung.

Because.... this is the thing. This is the thing. I may be good at it by now, but I'm so tired of picking locks. I'm tired of doing all the legwork because no one ever thinks to help me. I'm tired of feeling like an afterthought at best, or at worst utterly unwelcome.

If you truly want to be inclusive, you need to stop telling people that you're happy to have them -- if they can manage to unlock the door. You need to fucking open it yourself and welcome them in.

What brought all this back to me now, you may be asking? Well... I guess it's just what I was thinking to myself as I was tidying up my phone.

Today I'm deleting podcasts.

[alpaca-clouds]

How to make a "world" more accessible

Let's talk a bit about accessible worldbuilding. I am thinking here first about Solarpunk worlds, but also about other scifi and fantasy worlds, that often do not think about this at all. Again, there is this nasty tendency to just assume that there are no disabilities in those worlds - and it leaves disabled people often feeling left out.

One of the most basic accessibility features one would expect to see in a world would be some sorts of ramps. And don't get me started with "oh, in my world wheelchairs fly!", which is something that actually not all folks reliant on wheelchairs want - as the actual hand-moved wheelchair often gives them a certain control.

It should also be noted that ramps help not only wheelchair users, but also people with baby strollers, and folks who might use other mobility aids like rollators. Heck, in my life ramps have also helped me, when I was travelling with a large trunk. Really, ramps make life easier for a lot of folks! Heck, if we think about a solarpunk world, where hopefully a lot of folks would get around by bike, ramps would help as well.

Of course, in some cases (if feasible in the technology level) there might also be a need for some sort of elevator. Again, not only wheelchair users will make use of that.

Another thing that should help, would be a wider usage of stuff like orientation systems for blind people. Currently those things are fairly spotty. Like some places have them, other places don't. And even where they are implemented, a lot of folks do not know what they are and will walk over it and park their cars on it. Stuff like that, which will once again make stuff more dangerous and inaccessible for blind people.

Then there should more accessibility accomondations for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Those could mean to install visual signals for warning systems, which often currently are mainly auditory. It could also mean a wider usage of stuff like subtitles if possible in the world. And it also could mean that in the world people are more encouraged to learn sign language.

But those are the obvious disabilities. The stuff folks think off first when they hear "disability".

But there are other disabilities. Personally, for example, I do have some issues with my bowels. So what would be important to me is easy access to toilets whereever I move around. Which also is to say: Yes, dear public transport. Not having a single accessible toilet in your fucking train is an accessibility issue and ableistic.

Or the one accessibility aspect that has slowly been taken away recently due to hostile architecture: Benches and other places in public to sit down on. Because a lot of folks just cannot stand/walk for a long while. This is true for old people, and recently increasingly too for folks disabled through COVID.

There is also the need for shaded areas. As there are several disabilities that do not deal well with direct sunlight. Be it people who react allergic against sunlight, be it people whose eyes cannot deal with too much light, or be it people who might just struggle with their circulation when in the direct sun for too long.

And then there is allergic people. Which is also a big chunk - and in some cases can be quite debilitating. And I might remind people: In a fantasy or scifi world there might be people allergic to some of the worldbuilding stuff. Like in the Witcher Triss is allergic against magic, and in the nice sapphic webcomic Always Human one of the two main characters is allergic against bio-implants. Hence, ideally in an accessible fantasy/scifi world it would be easy to access what kinda stuff is in a potion and what not, to allow folks to be safe.

Lastly, of course, there are neurodivergent folks and... about that I am going to talk tomorrow.

Oh, and by the way: If you are disabled and have ideas of how the world could be more accessible for you... Please feel free to add!

[autisticadvocacy]

Today, we are celebrating the first ever Disability Reproductive Equity Day. In June 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the right to abortion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. This decision has disproportionately impacted disabled people, who faced many barriers to abortion access even before Dobbs, including provider bias and lack of training on provision of care to disabled people, inaccessible facilities and medical equipment, inaccessible public and private transportation, and the Hyde Amendment. Abortion justice is disability justice, and for the first ever Disability Reproductive Equity Day today, we are advocating for disabled people to be able to access safe and affordable abortions. Legislation like the Reproductive Health Care Accessibility Act, the EACH Act, and the Women’s Health Protection Act would play a critical role in this access. #DisCoRepro

[fallout-lou-begas]

my biggest ever pet peeve is when events advertise themselves as being "in Chicago" when they are actually in Hoffman Estates which is an hour or more drive west of the city and completely inaccessible by public transportation because no trains or buses go out that far, not even the amtrak or the metra. exurb events advertising themselves as being "in Chicago" is a general pet peeve but hoffman estates is literally the worst

[parasolyaa]

give me rtc character hcs for being in the subway for the first time

i love how this implies that they’ve never been in the subway before. well, since most of them almost never left uranium, this checks.

ocean — she always advocated for public transportation (and for some reason believed it wasn’t widely used, probably because she assumed everyone could use a car and subway was for noble people who cared for the environment), but if she ever went to a big city, she never stayed there for long, and usually walked by foot. when she actually used the subway for the first time, she decided to hand out flyers that said something like “thank you for choosing public transit! here are some other ways you can help the planet (…)”. ended up absolutely overwhelmed and in a taxi, wiping tears with the flyers no-one seemed to like. wonder why.

noel — romanticized the shit out of paris metropolitan, said he researched all about it and prided himself on being more knowledgeable of it than a local. when he got to go to france (probs a family/school trip when he was a teen) he bought an overpriced graphic t-shirt with the metropolitan map and confidently entered the underground. immediately got disappointed it wasn’t all gothic catacombs, and accidentally sat on a wrong train. had to take off his t-shirt and figure out where he was, and after two hours of being chest naked in the french underground and hopping from one wrong train to another even wronger train a kind passer-by pointed out that the print on his tee was of marseille, not paris. he spent an extra hour figuring out the correct map and asking for directions in broken french (the locals despised him). he entirely missed the drag show he waited for, and ever since then grew to hate the french underground.

mischa — is in on a ukrainian inside joke about metro in odesa. successfuly convinced all choir that there’s metro in odesa. there is no metro in odesa.

there’s also a ukrainian book called toreadors from vasyukivka, where two boys want to build a metro in their village, so they dig a big hole in their yard and a cow accidentally falls into it. safe to say their idea doesn’t stick. at some point these boys get to kyiv and immediately get lost in metro there. that’s 100% mischa. he did this i was the cow.

also he always finds ways not to pay for his ride: jumps over the tourniquet’s, crawls under them, squeezes in with a person in front of him etc. sometimes gets extremely bored and hides in a train wagon when it reaches the final stop, and stays in it when it goes to depo.

ricky — his parents drove him everywhere by car, and told the tales about toronto subway being inaccessible, dangerous and full of freaks. he never believed them. at some point (maybe in a trip with the choir) he got to travel by subway himslef. it was, in fact, a bit of an unpleasant experience, but he found out that it sucks on his own terms and was lowkey proud.

also he was listening to some cringefail furry music (i do not know if furry music is a thing but it will be now) and realised his earphones disconnected and he was blasting it to everyone only after he got home.

penny — had a secret hiding spot in toronto subway where she could keep her things and return to see them intact. she and ezra hid there often and spied on people, sometimes picking up what fell out of their purses — like pieces of candy or pennies (get it? penny? pennies? penis?). they never stayed there for long tho cause it was too overwhelmingly loud.

one time she went to that place and realised some construction workers occupied it. she was emotionally devastated.

constance — always saves the seat for the elderly, disabled and other people who might need it, and people always thank her plenty when she does so. actually never ever sat on a train seat unless the wagon was mostly empty. however, one time she had a horribly tiring + devastating + bad day and decided to sit down for once. got called 10 slurs by an old guy who didn’t see there was another free seat and ocean then told her she should have thought about others first. when she got home she wrote an angry vent in her musical diary (yk, the ones that open with a password and then play a one direction song or smth) with a fluffy pen.

+ talia — she is a subway rat. has a love/hate relationship with obolon station. has beef with pochayna station. she herself is from solomyanka region of kyiv where there is no subway. considers it her curse.

thank you folks for reading this, feel free to send me asks for headcanons!

[queer-crip-grows]

If you are involved in climate activism and if you work in town planning and purchasing, or anything similar, I am begging you to please, *please* start thinking about disabled folk, elderly folk and parents with young kids when you are talking about walking and biking to places.

Cycles are absolutely inherently more pedestrian-friendly than cars, but they are still perfectly capable of injuring or even killing pedestrians, particularly frailer people, small people, and pets.

A lot of pedestrians, especially elderly and disabled people, have developed this instinctive terror of cycles and cyclists purely because poor planning so often shoves cycles into pedestrian spaces that aren’t actually even that ideal for pedestrians, and people who already have difficulties - elderly and disabled people, dog walkers, parents of small children - in those spaces start accumulating experiences of injury or even a succession of near-misses, which are perfectly capable of producing trauma even if physical injury is avoided.

And that only plays into the hands of polluters and governments who are in their pockets as well as increasing the marginalisation of already-marginalised people.

I can’t blame cyclists who are too afraid to ride cycles on the roads along with motor traffic. It’s terrifying and incredibly unsafe. Cycle paths, Cycle lanes, and other specific spaces for cyclists are absolutely essential, with as little need to share space with motor traffic *or* pedestrians as possible. Even in wide city boulevards, laid-out cycle paths and spaces are essential. They literally only need paint! And let electric scooters back on them in the UK too.

If you are providing any form of public rentable cycles, please, *please* accommodate elderly, frailer and disabled people too. We tend to be the ones who are in the most need of alternatives to get places, but traditional bikes are inaccessible to frailer people and most people with balance and fatigue issues. Please buy a selection of bikes, including adult-size tricycles, scooters with seats, and bikes with seats and tow options for small children. Parents exist, and are mostly desperately in need of transport as they have small humans with short legs and limited energy, and most prams and buggies are incompatible with traditional cycles.

We know so damn well how right-wing governments and corporations benefit from setting us against each other, and how adept they are at using marginalised people to distract the majority of exploited workers from the larger issues said governments are doing poorly or not tackling at all.

Disabled and elderly people, and parents of small children, are very vulnerable to climate change and the issues it causes. We are not the enemies of the climate movement; but we equally need to be *included* in it and *accommodated* by it.

If you are only looking for solutions that work for abled, healthy young adults, you are, frankly, not doing your job effectively. Listen to disabled people, older people, and parents. If you are doing large-scale planning work, invite us into the planning process *early*, not at the end when any changes will seem too burdensome and expensive to make, and, honestly, pay us for our time and expertise.

Oh, and if you make or sell bikes or electric bikes, sell more accessible options like adult trikes and ones with child seats and towing options too, please. And don’t charge enormously more for them than standard bikes. Financing options would be good too. Most disabled people can’t afford to run a car, and your bikes are often more expensive than that, if you offer them at all.

[t4tvampireisms]

I’m not surprised that people are suddenly remembering disabled people exist, now that something has arisen that directly impacts them. Never mind the fact public property is often inaccessible, never mind most business establishments are inaccessible, never mind the fact there’s so little of us with access to transportation.

Once this is all over, physically abled people will continue to ignore our existence.

[majaurukalo]

To understand disability issues better there needs to be a serious talk about the link between disability and freedom of choice (or lack thereof).

Western society loves to brag about freedom of choice in terms of being free to do and say and think whatever (we have seen a lot of it during lockdown and regarding vaccine and such and from that it became clear that people don’t really know what “freedom” really means).

So let me straight up tell you that we, disabled people (not all but a lot of us) don’t have much freedom of choice.

First of all, if you consider inaccessibility, we are not free to go wherever we want or socialise or work wherever or attend any kind of universities or schools (yes, I know people who had to give up going to the uni or school of their dreams because they didn’t want/couldn’t provide accessibility).

If an able-bodied person has to find any kind of job to not end up homeless or starve they can do whatever minimum wage job that involves physical strain until they are back on their feet. This is not possible for some disabled people (like me). So this leaves me (us) out of some choices. And in a precarious financial situation.

Some disabled people aren’t free to go to certain shops or restaurants or bars or shows or events etc. because of inaccessibility.

Disabled people who need assistance to travel with public transport can’t choose to travel on their own terms or jump on a last-minute trip because assistance needs to be booked 24 hour earlier in most cases (and some require even 48 hours).

Disabled people can’t always choose the cheapest option because that is usually inaccessible for us so we have to spend more money and not because we like fancy stuff. Also, disabled people are the poorest community and in some countries you can’t have more than a certain amount of money in your bank account if you don’t want to see your benefits gone (benefits that, I highlight, are essential for our survival) so we cannot even climb the social ladder. Another layer of choice stripped away from us.

Disabled people can’t chose where to live or who to live with. Some disabled people need assistance and, since finding a PA is hard and they need to be paid, some of us have to live with our parents or family members and if they are abusive or the relationship isn’t working we can’t just decide to walk out. Because who is gonna help us then? That’s why a lot of abuse towards disabled people remains undiscovered. Some disabled people can’t even acknowledge it and report it.

Many of us can’t just move away from a city or a country because our well-being is tied to a supporting network that we wouldn’t find anywhere else. Not to mention doctors and medications that might not be available somewhere else. So if we complain about the situation of the place we live or that we don’t like to live where we live, it’s not so easy for us to leave everything and move somewhere else (for some it’s impossible).

Disabled people aren’t always free to choose to have kids. The medical system and society’s prejudices make it hard for disabled parents to have kids and there is always a lot of judgment towards disabled parents, especially mothers. Many of us risk to have our children taken away by social workers.

Disabled people don’t have the freedom to choose for their own bodies.

I’m sure I’m forgetting something else but these are the things that worry me the most, regarding my own life and the life of my community.

The only thing this society seems pretty happy to make us choose is assistive dying.

But please, tell me again that we are in it for the money. That we have benefits so we don’t have to work and lazy around all day. Tell me that our lives must be easy.

Even on my off days I’m not free to choose what to do because I might have a flare up, I might be in pain, I might have to go to the doctor.

Oh and one last thing: your freedom to not get your vaccine hinders someone’s freedom to go around. Someone’s freedom to live.

For some reason, this society is quick to judge and justify everything that keeps away disabled people’s choices.

Some able-bodied people think that it is okay to equal disability to a lower quality of life but that lower quality of life depends only on external factors and could be easily improved.

Fuck you!