by Charles H. Crawford
How often have all of us considered going to a movie, shopping, seeing friends, meeting that special person for a hot date, going to work, getting a haircut et cetera, only to run up against the dreaded "T" word? Truly transportation is a major bugaboo for folks with visual impairments, but hold on, there's hope!
ACB has been in the forefront of accessible environmental issues for many years. We have gotten detectable warning requirements enforced at the edges of subway and train platforms and those areas where we encounter vehicular traffic; we have gotten accessible pedestrian signalization installed at intersections where we need to know when the crossing phase is active; we are struggling to keep roundabouts from becoming a no man's land for the blind, but all these things will have gone for nought if we don't take the transportation challenge! Here's what I mean.
For years public transportation has been seen as a kind of transit repository for the dispossessed who are too poor to afford their own cars, or the politically correct and environmentally sound alternative to the private auto by many of us who listen to public radio and worry about life in third world countries. Smile. Yet neither of these views really addresses the larger issue of smart community growth or our own direct issue of getting from here to there safely and without many inconveniences. How many of us can recount endless problems with subway delays, buses passing us by, not finding bus stops, not having upcoming stops announced, not finding the bus we need in a row of them, trying to manage connections to other buses or trains in a system that seems unwieldy at best? Is there an answer? Let me offer two encouraging beacons of light in this all too often overwhelming world of public transport.
First, we can truly celebrate our organizational involvement with what is called Project Action. This program that has been around for many years seeks to combine the thinking of public and private transportation providers along with governmental officials and people with disabilities to improve the transportation situation for people with any number of disabilities, including us. We have gotten funding for a good deal of research and programming aimed at making our use of the transit system better. In fact, this year Project Action will be funding important programming, including training municipalities in the proper installation of accessible signals as well as partially funding research into making the pedestrian environment associated with public transportation more user-friendly.
Another approach to the issue of truly making transportation accessible is the fact that talking sign technology is finally making its entry into the mainstream of public transport. Two makers of signs for buses are already working on implanting talking sign transmitters into the sign at the front of the bus. This means that any person who has a talking sign receiver will be able to tell what bus is coming or is standing there and to get on just like everyone else. If we add this technology to the bus stop signs and get receivers into the hands of blind folks, then just imagine the difference from today to tomorrow!
ACB is deeply involved with these and other solutions. We will be giving away six talking sign systems at our national convention in Houston, and we are involved with helping Project Action to address the mobility issues we all confront. There are no singular solutions to the transportation challenge, but whether it be fixed route transportation, paratransit, combined modalities or the host of other approaches, we will meet the challenge, get from here to there with safety and convenience, and free ourselves of the isolation and exclusion that comes not from blindness, but from the unintended barriers that have arisen from mainstream planning while people who were blind were on the margins. Now, we who are blind demand the inclusion we deserve as participating citizens in the life of our larger community. Working together as an organization, we can make it happen.