Thoughts on Accessibility

Accessibility needs to mean more than wheelchair access. It needs to mean more than allowing service dogs and getting sign language interpreters. It needs to mean more than having an elevator in some dark, scary corner of a building somewhere completely out of the way.

When I injured my knee in January 2011, as I mentioned in a recent post, I had some difficulty getting to class due to an inaccessible building. What I didn't mention then was that I also had some difficulty with two classes that took place in a building that was supposed to be accessible. One of those classes could not be moved because of the sheer size (425 students) and the other was eventually moved for other reasons. I say the building was supposed to be accessible, because it had an elevator and it had a ramp to the back door. The thing about the elevator is that the building was constructed with what I can only call half floors and the elevator only stops at some of them. The elevator is only designed to stop at some of them. The floor that is accessible by the ramp is not a floor where the elevator stops. Presumably to fix this problem, the school installed a wheelchair lift like the one pictured above on a flight of stairs leading to a floor with elevator access. That's fine for people who use a wheelchair, but I couldn't use that lift safely on crutches, and I couldn't use it now with my brace. On top of that, you need a key to operate the lift. My class was a night class. I'm not certain if you can get someone to operate the lift outside of business hours, but it seems like a lot of trouble to go through. I never asked. Instead, I hobbled as best I could up the stairs to my class that was eventually moved to a room in a newer building.

The other class I had in the building was in a two story auditorium. The professor lectured from the bottom half of the room, that floor was accessible from the elevator, if only I could use it. If I arrived early enough to get a seat in the front row of the top half, I'd be fine, except that the top half of the room was occupied mostly by people who hadn't figured out skipping class yet and were unable to shut the heck up. No big deal though, I could hear most of the lecture. The problems came in on the day of the midterm, the days the assignments were due and the days when assignments were handed back. Everything had to be handed in, and was handed back from, the front of the room. I couldn't get to the front of the room safely. Problem. I had to get creative about it, and I managed okay in the end, but it left me feeling like "accessibility" was only for people with wheelchairs. I still feel that way a lot of the time. Every time there's a stair-lift instead of an elevator, every time I get crowded out of an elevator by wheelchairs and strollers, every time someone glares at me for using a seat on the bus, it reminds me that "accessibility" isn't for people like me. But it should be.