2006-05-18 - 12:33 p.m.
Nya and I are going to Boston this weekend for a friend�s wedding (actually, two of my friends are marrying each other � how convenient not having to learn a new name). This will be Nya�s first time in Boston ever and my first time back seriously visiting using a wheelchair. I guess I went to Boston a few times in the fall for chemotherapy, but all I really did while there was get chemo and recuperate afterwards in some motel.
We�re staying at my friend�s in Brookline (a suburb, but surrounded by Boston on three sides) and the wedding is just a short ways away. But we�ll have to take the �T�, Boston�s transit system. Specifically, we�ll have to take the Green Line, a mostly-above-ground light-rail line consisting of rather silly-looking two-car long trolleys. From what I remember it was very wheelchair-inaccessible.
There are several steep steps going into the cars, which are pretty narrow already. At some stations there are clunky drawbridge/siege-tower contraptions that can be wheeled out and manually cranked to lift a person in a chair onto the car. Then this laborious process has to be repeated to let them off (so you�d better hope there�s a lift device at the station you�re going to). I�m not even sure who specifically is asked to roll the thing out and crank it up.
I�m going to be so horrified and almost ashamed to have to have someone else manually crank me up to get on the train. It seems so Reagan-era and pre-ADA. Maybe it�ll be a nice change of pace for some T worker, but still. Why would anyone in Boston with a disability want to experience this humiliation on a regular basis? Why would they ever even want to use the Green Line? (The other three heavy-rail subway lines in the system are more accessible, but still.)
Of course, as Nya pointed out, I don�t live in Boston anymore. Chicago is so a better environment. True, the Chicago el isn�t accessible at all stations. But getting on never involves anything so embarrassing as getting a guy to roll out some medieval-looking manual lift and you can just take a bus anywhere instead. Being in surroundings that don�t make it feel like a big production every time you just want to get from point A to point B makes life so much better on a daily basis.
The ironic part is that in early 2004, my last days living in Boston, the T was starting the process of replacing all Green Line train cars with a new, accessible model. These had entrances without stairs and they were also raising all the waiting platforms in the system to be at grade with these cars so wheelchair users could just roll straight on. Great (and only 14 years after the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990).
However, shortly after they started rolling out these new cars, it was decided they had some mechanical flaw (or maybe that the right parties hadn�t been paid off sufficiently) and they were pulled back out of service. As I recall, various bureaucratic bungling and money-squandering ensued. I emailed the friend we�re staying with to ask if any progress had been made on this issue. But he said no, it was still the same old manual lift routine.
I called the main MBTA number to ask how I could notify someone that I needed a lift (in my memory, most Green Line stations aren�t staffed). I was transferred around a bit and was finally connected to someone. I said I�d be visiting Boston and asked how disabled access worked.
�Oh, they roll out a lift and raise you up to the car!�
�Okay. Who are �they�? How do I tell them I need a lift?�
There was a long pause �What? I can barely hear you!�
�How! Do! I! Tell! Them��
�What? There�s a lot of static on the line!�
I didn�t hear much.
�Look, why don�t you call back!�
Great, thanks for the help. I hung up.
I used to give places like Boston somewhat of a by on accessibility. After all, they were originally constructed so long ago. Upgrades to the built environment allowing more accessible entrance might be prohibitively costly. But then I saw the uber-accessible Denver. It�s funny how Easterners sometimes characterize it as a �newer city�. But the place was a fucking boomtown of the Wild West and has been in business for a century and a half.
Then I moved to Chicago. Maybe it�s not colonial-era ancient like Boston, but the place was founded as a city in 1833 and first settled as a trading post in the 1770s by the Haitian (and possibly club-footed) Jean-Baptiste du Sable. And we have curb-cuts in both directions on every single corner. I�ve already sang the praises of how our buses let wheelchair users go right on with minimal fuss.
Today�s technology is more than good enough (although really, how much fancy technology does it take to make concrete sidewalks with corner curb-cuts?) to implement accessible design seamlessly with minimal fuss. Throwing up your hands by saying �We�re just too old to be accessible!� is so disingenuous. There�s always a way. You may be too chickenshit to say �Well, we could upgrade things to make them more accessible, but it�ll just cost too much. Sorry.� But you�re probably not thinking things through well enough.
� 2006 Geoff Gladstone
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