The Traveling Wheelchair

Section I. U.S. Access Board - Boston  - Morning Session – 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Section II. U.S. Access Board - Boston - Afternoon Session - 2 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Section III. Addendum - Equal and Safe Access for Wheelchair-Seated Travelers

United States Access Board
1331 F Street, NW, Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20004-1111
Phone (voice): (202) 272-0080 toll free: (800) 872-2253
Phone (TTY): (202) 272-0082 toll free: (800) 993-2822
Fax: (202) 272-0081
E-mail:  info@access-board.gov
Website:  http://www.access-board.gov/about.htm

U.S. Access Board Town Hall Meeting - Boston - May 28, 2009 

Website: http://www.access-board.gov/news/boston.htm

Pictured left to right: Diane Georgopolos, Ted Landsmark, Joe Cirillo,
Valerie Fletcher, Polly Welch, Elaine Ostroff

Notes of Meeting by fellow advocate Eileen Feldman
Founder, Community Access & Inclusion Project
http://www.slideshare.net/eilily/slideshows

 

Section I. U.S. ACCESS BOARD - BOSTON - MORNING SESSION – 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.

The day began with introductions to the U.S. Access Board (this is the link).  Doug Anderson, Chair, briefly outlined some of their current work.  They are providing information and resources for the Recovery Act projects, in order to ensure accessibility wherever possible.   The link for that important information is here, and I encourage everyone to check it out!   Then the two morning sections flowed, which were Public Comments and “Promoting Accessibility in Design.” In the afternoon, there were 2 presentations: “Crafting Universally Designed Museum Exhibits” and MA Architectural Access Board Presentation.

Present at the U.S. Access Board meeting are from left; John Kelly, founder of  NAG - Neighborhood Access Group , Eileen Feldman, founder Community Access & Inclusion Project and Kenny Cieplik, founder of ‘The Traveling Wheelchair’. Link for Kenny’s wheelchair accessibility review - click on The Fairmont Copley Plaza.

Pictured left to right: John Kelly,
Eileen Feldman, Kenny Cieplik

1.  Some Public Comments noted by writer: 9:45 - 10 a.m.

The Acoustic Society of America and the Audiology Association have been continuing their solid research on the beneficial aspects of creating quieter classrooms alongside the negative effects of noisy classrooms.

• PROBLEM:  Since the ANSI standards for classroom acoustics are still largely voluntary, they have been climbing the uphill mountain to get the word out on the fact that solutions exist.  Although certain ambient noises are still inevitable within the classroom, the focus and aptitudes of kids are greatly potentiated if compliance with existent acoustic standards are coupled with technological and knowledge-based recommendations, innovations and solutions from this field’s experts. Access Board responded with appreciation for their work and will continue working to strengthen these important accessibility requirements.

Don Summerfield:  Bricks are not safe for individuals with and without disAbilities.  Don is a great advocate and a member of the  Cambridge Commission for Persons With DisAbilities.

Bill Henning,  Boston Center for Independent Living (BCIL): Bricks are extremely unsafe and inaccessible.  And, socially and culturally:  Bricks create gated communities, by virtue of their line of inaccessibility around areas of town.  What a great bunch of points by Bill Henning, Director of BCIL!  Bill also discussed the inaccessibility of medical equipment as well as medical facilities in general, especially for wheelchair users, and cited some recent studies that are presently the foundation for legislation currently being considered.

The Legislation -  HB2137/SB819 – Accessible Medical Equipment. The House Bill is sponsored by the extraordinary Representative Denise Provost, and the Senate Bill is sponsored by the extraordinary Senator Pat Jehlen.  Written Language of Bill @  http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/senate/186/st00/st00819.htm..

• People with disabilities face serious disparities in health care for many reasons, including inaccessibility of diagnostic medical equipment. The lack of accessible equipment causes great suffering, including costly preventable disease and premature death. This bill requires health care providers to have available medical equipment that is accessible to, and usable by, individuals with disabilities. It requires standards to be established for the minimum technical criteria for medical diagnostic equipment used in health care settings. It also requires the Department of Public Health’s oversight to address health care disparities for people with disabilities. (Sen. Patricia Jehlen and Rep. Denise Provost)

Mike Festa, MBTA:  Mike gave fabulous tweaks for improving the ADA Accessibility Guidelines, known as ADAAG, based upon his knowledge and experience working towards MBTA Accessibility for all.

• 1. Path of travel issues- ramps are often so long because of the requirements for a certain length per sloping. This is burdensome for folks who use walkers, etc. and need the ramps, but are distance-limited, and the ramps prove too long.  Indeed, they become more of a hindrance that an accessible route, as a result. Access Board said they will work on length of path of travel issues.
• 2. Overpass and underpass clearance- especially, double decker coaches have clearance issues.
• 3.  Covered ramps should be required for weather protection at bus stops and T stops.
• 4.  Audio and Visual public address system requirements underdeveloped.
• 5. Tactile strips tend to crack or buckle in NE weather, let us develop more suitable materials for outdoor tactile strips! [This is a link from  Armor-Tile about the ADA requirements for tactile strips]
• 6.  There are no requirements for elevators, either- what an important issue.

Andy Foreman a staff person at BCIL, said Accessibility should be a top priority in governance! Yes!

Michael Muehe, City of Cambridge ADA Coordinator and Executive Director of the Cambridge Commission for Persons with Disabilities: Michael’s extensive knowledge and experience yielded several suggestions:

• 1. Universal Design (UD) Principles could be merged with concept of “equivalent facilitation”- in which the principle of equivalent facilitation should exceed the standard requirements, while allowing for innovation.
• 2. Parking lots should also utilize UD principles- all accessible spots should be van-accessible so that folks using accessible vans should not have to compete with folks needing HP spots but not necessarily using a van. [The van-accessible spots have a 96 inch space plus the adjacent 96 inch access aisle. The Access Board’s Technical Bulletin regarding accessible parking is here.]
• 3. Bricks- they are not an accessible surface material and hard to maintain. Bricks pop up due to extremes in weather (Gary on the Access Board noted that they pop up even in nice climates), so they cannot be maintained in a consistent, prolonged way, even if they are wire-cut bricks. In addition, it is questionable if brick manufacturers would be able to provide neutral dialogue on this issue.
• 4. Regarding Recreational facilities, Michael suggested that the Access Board consider creating standards for small craft and sailing boating docks and launching facilities.
• 5. And Michael congratulated the U.S. Access Board for their hard work upgrading the standards since the 1994 version, and encouraged the Department of Justice to promulgate those excellent updated requirements to be enforceable ASAP!

2. Promoting Accessibility in Design Education- 10:30-11:15

Valerie Fletcher, Executive Director of Institute for Human Centered Design spoke about the present moment of opportunity. I cannot do justice to this wise woman’s words. Valerie graciously hosted the discussion. (The Institute for Human Centered Design, formerly known as Adaptive Environments, has a website here: http://www.adaptenv.org/index.php?option=Home

Diane Georgopulos spoke about the Annual Build Boston Conference- a great resource and link aging event! and outlined what sustainability really means: It is often described as a three-legged stool with environmental, ecological and social equity issues bearing equal weight. (Diane has a bio here: http://www.ap.buffalo.edu/sap/alumni/profiles_georgopulos.asp

Theodore (Ted) Landsmark is the President of the Boston Architectural College (their website is here: http://www.the-bac.edu/). Meeting him, you want to go there and learn design! He is passionate about the positives in Universal Design- and equally stronglu motivated to produce and celebrate heroes in UD design. He pointed out that UD provides opportunities in aesthetics as well as providing equity in the built environments- it’s not just a “mere obligation.” he recommends online education opportunities also, so that individuals who cannot physically access a school can still have opportunities to learn about urban design, interior design, and architecture.

Joe Cirillo, U.S. Access Board member, had interesting things to say, but I did not note them down, and cannot report on them here.

Polly Welch works for the MA Department of Capital Asset Management.  She was really inspirational and fun to listen to.  She passionately declared that architecture is a mechanism for social change and refreshingly acknowledged that we have a long way to go before Contractors and Building Inspectors understand architectural accessibility concepts and enforce those standards adequately.  She suggested a great tweak in AutoCAD programs would be if they automatically defaulted to architectural accessibility code and dimensions, so that the accessibility codes are correctly proportioned from the designer’s digital envisioning of the project- what a simply great improvement that would be!  She spoke deeply about affordable/equitable values, meta-level values, and the importance of creating pride in the UD creations.  She requested- and challenged- that the U.S. Access Board consider values as an integral part of their technical discussion.  Great stuff.

Finally, we all had the privilege of meeting Elaine Ostroff, who founded the  Institute for Human Centered Design 30 years ago!  Elaine came up to offer public comments and to challenge and inspire us all to continue being strong advocates for inclusion, usability, and human-centered approaches in everything we do.  Great show.

As the morning sesssion ended - Kenny Cieplik, founder of The Traveling Wheelchair, presented Joe Cirillo, member of the  United States Access Board a copy of 4 formal complaints he filed with the U.S. Access Board in January of 2009 regarding the  Taunton U.S. Post Office , Fall River U.S. Post Office, Plymouth U.S. Post Office and New Bedford U.S. Post Office not having any wheelchair access to their U.S. Post Offices.

Joe was very nice and told Kenny he will personally look into his 4 complaints.  Paula Cieplik, Kenny’s mom explained to Joe; “ Kenny & Company strongly believe All U.S. Post Offices should provide equal and full access to all citizens. And being located in an historical building is NO EXCUSE!  Many U.S. Post Offices located in historical buildings are fully accessible to all”. Specifically, she mentioned how wonderfully accessible the historical Quincy U.S. Post Office is to ALL citizens! Go Kenny & Company!

—End of Eileen’s Morning Session summary—

Section II. U.S. ACCESS BOARD - BOSTON - AFTERNOON SESSION - 2 p.m.- 5:30 p.m.

The afternoon session consisted of 2 presentations, and they were great!

Crafting Universally Designed Museum Exhibits - 2 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Presenters were:

a. Museum of Science-

Betty Davidson and Anna with a long last name (I did not’ catch that, sorry!) from the Museum of Science.

Betty showed us how the Museum developed its understanding of how to create exhibits with all sensory-rich exhibits, and it is very impressive.  The concept of Universal Design in Museums may be thought of as “intellectual access” considerations.  The intention is to develop the greatest access to the concepts with all their varied aspects.  We saw a diorama example in which the tactile, smell, visual and auditory senses were offered a “you are there” view, and saw how educational concepts are presented in a manner that fully engages the visitor.  What great work they’re doing!

b. Charles Hayden Planetarium/Museum of Science-

Noreen Grice

My, this was exciting.  Noreen told us how, when she first began as an intern from BU, her job was to let people in to see the show, sit at the controls, and then say Thank You and show them out at the end.  One day, a school group of blind kids came in and she wasn’t sure what to do.  So her supervisor told her to just lead them to their seats and run the show.  But, at the end of the show, she broke with her role to come around and ask them, “what did you think of the Planetarium show?”

She says, there was quite an awkward pause, and then one of the kids blurted out, “It stunk!”

Which inspired this wonderful, curious woman to find her way, the next day, to the Carroll School for the Blind and take a look at their books and try to puzzle out how blind children see pictures.

The result is that today, the Planetarium offers a fully multisensory event, which should be used as a model for all theatre-like presentations.  She even makes tactile representations of the solar system pictures for people to take home with them, using a Swell Form Machine, which takes a black and white representation and “puffs out” the black parts so that it is possible to see through our fingers.  (I’ll bet Noreen is considering how to make it accessible for people with visual impairments plus peripheral neuropathy or loss of limbs as we speak- I think I’ll contact her to ask about that.)  Noreen offered her PowerPoint presentation as copies, so I’ll bet it is available for folks to request, if they contact her at the Planetarium.

Noreen did not mention this, but she founded YOU CAN DO ASTRONOMY LLC, which has an internet presence at  http://www.youcandoastronomy.com/

c. Kevin McGuire of McGuire Associates, Inc.

Kevin told us of his work making large sites accessible for all people.  He spoke about the Gillette Stadium in particular.  Then, Larry Goldberg, Director of  WGBH’s Media Access passed around a handheld captioning device being developed for marked by a company called SOFTECH.  Here we have a portable GPS navigation system that responds to embedded GPS markers in the very facility!  What a fabulous concept and one that can be taken to the highest level, so that everyone can find their way around the world including its facilities and programs someday!!!

How thrilling this was.

MA Architectural Access Board Presentation

Next we heard from MA AAB who, as we all know, both write and enforce building code.  Although they are specifically NOT a civil rights enforcer, the architectural code has the effect of, and potential for, righting the wrongs caused by inconsiderate or erroneously built facilities and structural elements in our built environment.

Nancy Starnes was the moderator, with MA AAB Members Myra Berloff, Director of MA Office on Disability, Donald Lang, Chair of the AAB, and Edward Gee, AAB Member.

Myra summarized the 40 year history of MA’s AAB and spoke about the subcommittee that began work in 2007 to harmonize the State Code with the Federal ADAAG as well as other building codes, so that the final result will be a document that includes the final word on what MA Buildings should be adhering to- no more wondering which codes to rely on!

Then Donald, who is apparently a wonderful architect and sits on the MA Historic Commission as well as the AAB! Spoke elegantly about how Historic Preservation and architectural accessibility should not be conflicting themes- but rather, they can mutually accommodate each other to produce buildings of highest quality and finest historic continuation.

Then, we had some great audience questions.  Bonnie Kaplan talked about the awful streetscape right at the Arlington and Boylston stops- I don’t remember the specific intersection she pointed out, but it is yet another instance where 4 large institutions are fighting over who owns the responsibility; none are willing to accept responsibility; and, meanwhile, people are unnecessarily suffering because of these stupid blame-games that waste everyone’s time.

The MA AAB made it very clear:  no matter who is doing the job, the city owns the streets.  The city should engage in whatever oversight necessary, to ensure that the streets are in usable condition for the public!

About 4:30 p.m., at the end of the session John Kelly, founder of NAG - Neighborhood Access Group, spoke about how brick sidewalks oppress people with disabilities, and emphasized how they can even make wheelchair users incontinent.

Meanwhile,  Governor Deval Patrick had come into the room and heard much of what John said. Governor Patrick said that it “provides food for thought.” Governor Patrick then spoke about how he is committed to ‘Equal Opportunity for Everyone’!!

We then had the public comments from local advocates, and it ended with a feeling of beaming and pride, because, what a great bunch of advocates MA has, and wouldn’t it be great if the work of Including Everyone were to truly bear fruit…

—End, of Eileen’s summary, afternoon with the U.S. Access Board!

A SPECIAL THANKS TO EILEEN FELDMAN FOR HER EXCELLENT NOTES AND DEDICATION TO ACCESS FOR ALL!!

Section III. Addendum - Equal and Safe Access for Wheelchair-Seated Travelers 

Kenny & Company couldn’t stay for the afternoon session. If we had been able to stay, Kenny & Company were going to mention the importance of EQUAL ACCESS for Transportation for wheelchair-seated Travelers to ensure  W/C Passenger Safety.

We were also going to mention the important MA Legislation   House 3785 and Senate 1948 ”An Act Relative to the Transportation of Individuals Seated in Wheelchairs”filed by State Representative Stephen Canessa and State Senator Marc Pacheco which will improve the safety of wheelchair-seated travelers.

The Massachusetts Senate No. is 1948; link is
http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/senate/186/st01/st01948.htm

The Massachusetts House No. is 3785; link is http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/house/186/ht03pdf/ht03785.pdf

Dr. Lawrence W. Schneider, Director, University of Michigan’s  RERC WTS (Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Wheelchair Transportation Safety) provided his expert advice for this needed legislation.

Passage of this legislation in the state of Massachusetts would ensure that us wheelchair-seated travelers are as safe as all other citizens traveling in vehicles