Locking your wheelchair lift and requiring disabled people to find an employee to unlock AND OPERATE it is a direct violation of the ADA.
āThe [ADA] Standards require āunassistedā entry and exit from lifts (Ā§410.1). Situations in which platform lifts are locked and require users to request or retrieve a key for operation will not satisfy this requirement for independent operation.ā
āAttendant operation, although recognized by the ASME A18.1 Standard, is expressly prohibited by the ADA Standards. Platform lifts must provide āunassisted entry and exit from the liftā (Ā§410.1).ā
(Source)
Smells like a lawsuit waiting to happenā¦
This is not great, but itās likely because people are fucking stupid and will screw around with it if itās not locked up.
[ID: @gavrielabrahamsĀ āItās probably because people were peeing in it.ā]
You think people were peeing. In an open wheelchair lift. In the middle of a museum. With public toilets around the corner.
I think not.
But even if people had been peeing in it or otherwise misusing the liftā¦ It. Doesnāt. Matter. Itās not justĀ ānot great.ā Itās ILLEGAL.Ā It is just as illegal to lock off a wheelchair lift as it is to not provide one to begin with.Ā
The correct response to people peeing in an elevator is never to lock the elevator. It is to provide a toilet. If you think the correct response to any problem is to violate the civil rights of an entire group of people by denying them access, YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.
Disability rights are civil rights.
You want to know exactly how this went down? Let me tell you a tale.
I was visiting the museum with friends. They went on around the corner while I finished looking at the previous exhibit. I then followed them around the corner only to find I couldnāt get up to the exhibit because the museum AS PART OF THEIR POLICY had illegally locked the lift. My friends didnāt know the lift was locked (why would the lift be locked?) and had no idea that I couldnāt get to them.
Now I, the disabled person, am forced to travel halfway around the buildingĀ to the front desk to find someone to unlock the lift for me, wait for them to finish what theyāre doing, and then travel all the way back to the lift. This was bad enough in a wheelchair. Who else uses lifts? Oh yes. People who struggle to walk. Can you imagine, as a person who struggles to walk, being forced to walk halfway around a building, and then back again, just to access an exhibit? You wouldnāt do it. Youād skip the exhibit. Youāve just been completely denied access.
So finally the museum employee unlocks the lift and then operates it (because yes, theyāve made it so I canāt operate it myself, which is also illegal). I finally get to the top probably ten minutes later, only to find that my friends have finished looking at the exhibit and are heading down again, wondering what has happened to me.Ā
After Iāve gone to all the trouble to get up there, fuck it if Iām not going to look at the damn exhibit. So I look at it, then head back to the lift to go back down, only to find theyāve locked the lift with me at the top and gone back to the front desk.
If one of my friends hadnāt stayed up there with me, Iād probably still be up there. As it was, my friend had to go down the stairs, back around to the front, find an employee, and get them to come back and let me down. Leaving me sitting up there. Alone. For another five minutes.
Now imagine if I had gone to the the museum by myself. Or what if there had been an emergency? You think if there was a fire some museum employee who couldnāt be assed to leave the damn lift unlocked until I had come back down would really have run back into the building to unlock the lift so I could get down? I think not.
Locking an accessibility feature is never the right solution. It is denying access to an entire class of people. Which is ILLEGAL and a CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATION.
Disability law is civil rights law.
Leak the museumās name. Blow up their twitter.
Itās the Museum of Flight in Seattle. They said they were going toĀ āaddress the issue.ā I havenāt been back to see if they did or not.Ā
