• Ligma_Male [comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    months ago i saw some very angry car-brained disability activist complaining about a space that penn &teller could've wheeled an iron lung through like an episode of bullshit somehow not being wheelchair accessible and i was just :jesse-wtf:

    they had like, half a point, that "walkable" won't always mean "accessible" and we do still need to do our urbanism in a way that accommodates people with mobility issues and that won't be automatic under liberalism where restaurants will want to block the entire sidewalk with seating.

    • TheOldRazzleDazzle [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      For sure, Tokyo and Hong Kong are incredibly walkable cities but not at all accessible. Though maybe it's gotten a bit better in the last decade or so.

      A disability activist in Tokyo used to document how it was nearly impossible to use basic public transportation in a wheelchair: no ramps onto buses or subways, no elevators, scary big gaps between the platform and subway car that his wheel could get stuck or fall in, et cetera.

    • blue_lives_murder [they/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      That half a point is that it's about equivalent experience, not merely being accessiblepossible. If it takes you five minutes to board a bus while an able bodied person gets on in 5 seconds, it's not really accessible.

      Another thing to woke chase over tho. What no materialism does to a mfer and all that

      • Ligma_Male [comrade/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        yeah i see some of the concrete ramps around here and wonder about how steep those are allowed to be.

        idk about 5 minutes vs 5 seconds but the kneeling busses i've been around seem quick enough, I'm not sure how much faster you can get those going or what the "not working very well" failure mode is. Opening a door is always going to be slower than opening a door and deploying a ramp.