#access fail

[recordofabrokenrobot]

[image descriptions: 1. photo of an elevator in the Penn Station subway, blocked off by a black and yellow gate. 2. photo of a midtown intersection, showing construction debris, a crosswalk obstructed by cones, and a mud puddle in front of the curb cut. 3. photo of my wheelchair from the front, showing the footplate separated into two pieces]

Ivy League Cyborg: August

A Bad Morning in Three Parts:

Today, I came scarily close to passing out on the subway platform because of the heat. Then I got stuck underground because of a broken elevator. Then I got rerouted because of closed and inaccessible crosswalks. And then I did a front flip into traffic because of a broken curb cut, and the front of my wheelchair snapped in two. 

Now I’m stuck at home with no mobility.

[recordofabrokenrobot]

Today in Why Is Erin Punching Walls:

It's the annual MLK celebration at my field placement. It's an awesome whole-school, student-generated art show, and it's across town at the Society for Ethical Culture. The school rents buses for the students and their families. As they drive off, they call me an accessible cab. The driver doesn't know how to open the ramp, but I talk them through it. The Society for Ethical Culture is all stairs. They charge up the lift specifically for me. I'm loaded into it backwards. None of the facilities staff are actually sure how it works. It gets stuck after 3 steps. At one point, I'm tipped forward and suspended over the stairs, hanging by my wheelchair seatbelt, while someone looks for an instruction manual. The team decides the lift is broken. They try to take me out of it but the ramp detaches and I fall. The middle school teachers are staring at me. There's another route to the auditorium. It involves 3 elevators, a 5-floor tour of the elementary school, and a door that opens directly onto the stage. I sit on the stage, facing hundreds of people, while the Pre-K students recite a poem about Ruby Bridges and the facility people carry a massive ramp through the crowd to cover the stage access stairs. There's barely enough room for my chair to get through the gaps behind the last row of seats and across the auditorium to the middle school. This is fine. I mean, it's awful. It shouldn't have happened. It was humiliating. But it's fine, because I didn't have any obligations during the event beyond watching it. My interaction with students was limited to passively applauding them. As a teacher or a social worker, I couldn't travel with students, help them find their seats, give stage cues, chaperone bathroom trips, provide sensory breaks, or have any significant interaction with the event. In MSW admissions essays I wrote a lot about what it means to be disabled in public - how my personal access conflicts are a part of every professional interaction I have. This is what that means. Because I live in a city that was built in a time when cripples weren't allowed to exist in public, some days I just don't get to be a social worker.

[recordofabrokenrobot]

[image description: photo of a printed sign reading “What’s the deal? We apologize, but our wheelchair lift is currently out of order. If you ring the bell, we will happily assist you up the ramp,” with the @chipotlemg logo]

Ivy League Cyborg: July

I’ve been trying to access this restaurant since 2016. The lift has been broken every time I’ve tried to eat there. In March of this year I contacted corporate and they assured me the broken part would be replaced quickly. Four months later, it’s still broken. The staff all ignore me now because they think I’m trying to scam free meals out of them. I just want to eat inside and not on the sidewalk.

[recordofabrokenrobot]

[image description: selfie in front of an indoor lift with a sticker reading “mobility impaired persons only, no freight” wearing a black raincoat and headphones]

Ivy League Cyborg: March

The Chipotle in this neighborhood has stairs for no discernible reason. There is a lift, but in the almost 2 years I’ve lived here, the lift has never worked. Employees keep changing their story - either they can’t find the keys, or the person trained to use it isn’t working, or they find the keys and the lift itself is broken. I’ve contacted corporate several times and they keep insisting the broken parts are being replaced, and yet the only time I’ve been inside the restaurant is when I went with a friend who carried me in my chair up the steps. They keep sending me free burrito vouchers but I can’t use them, because they keep having to comp the meals I order from the doorway. Now the staff treat me like I’m just there to but them for free food. I literally just want to be able to eat inside and not on the sidewalk. 

[recordofabrokenrobot]

[image description: photo of assorted garbage and broken materials in the back of a wheelchair-accessible cab.]

Ivy League Cyborg: June

Hailing an accessible cab in New York is never simple, and never dull. This ride I had no restraints, hit my knees against the seat, and had empty gas cans rattling around my feet on the corners.

[recordofabrokenrobot]

[image description: photo of a subway station elevator, with caution tape and a folding gate across the door]

Ivy League Cyborg: June

There’s nothing I love more than coming home and being unable to get out of the subway station.

[disabilityhistory-blog]

Over the last two years, the ADA management team has achieved minimal results, largely because of the lack of an effective program management structure and the absence of a strategic plan that sets a vision, goals, and objectives, including estimates of costs and a timeframe for completion,” the report stated.

Report: Amtrak making “limited progress” in accessibility goals

Amtrak was given 20 years - from 1990-2010 - to make its rail stations ADA-accessible. As of 2011, only 48 of Amtrak's 482 stations meet ADA standards.