Category Archives: The Blue Badge Blog

The Blue Badge Blog is a commentary on issues facing disabled people and the news that interests us

Don’t Block the Drop or the pavement, ok ?

Don't block the drop or the pavement, ok

Don’t Block the Drop or the pavement, ok !!

Short post but boy is this well done. One of the best images I’ve seen supporting the spread of campaigning against those who insist on using pavements as car parks or blocking Drop kerbs. Here’s the thing, it’s dangerous, it’s selfish, it sucks. You are putting lots of people at risk, not just those using a wheelchair. You are disabling loads of us when there is no good reason to make things even tougher to get around.

Love this very clever representation of just what it means to park on the pavement. Please stop doing it.

Cheers, Mark

Cottages and cabins can be accessible !! Here’s how !!

Accessible cottages and cabins

Cottages and cabins CAN be accessible !!

Finding quality accessible holiday accommodation is not easy but here’s 10 of the best cabins and cottages.

Love this piece from Srin at Disability Horizons writing for the Guardian in which he reports on 10 of the very best Cabin and cottage style places to stay. You just cannot beat first hand access experience and Srin knows his stuff as one of the founders of the new accomable.com website. More of that in future blogs but for now why not pick a cosy cottage or cute cabin for a holiday or weekend break?

http://ow.ly/ZFurK

Cheers, Mark

Don’t Block the Drop is a message that deserves to be heard!

Don't Block the Drop

Blocking the Drop just keeps on happening

Don’t block the Drop !!!

Now here’s a campaign that is dear to the hearts of every wheelchair user and / or any mobility impaired person, let alone those parents with mega sized double baby buggies !  The well designed “drop kerb” is without doubt one of THE most important access enablers of the last fifty years…or more !

The drop kerb may look simple enough. Building them isn’t rocket science but predictably expensive and full of debates around planning, health and safety, design discussions etc etc etc. Mention the need for a drop kerb and a shed load of folk in yellow bibs will surround you with clipboards and well meaning support. Try getting a drop kerb in your area and see what I mean. But truth is things are improving. My local authority here in Warrington recently embarked upon a big project to resurface some local roads outside the town centre. As part of this they delivered significant improvements to the number, and quality, of drop kerbs in parts of the town. I was made up.

I admit things got a little less ace when I discovered that in two miles of new drop kerbs there were ‘gaps’ were no drop kerb was installed because…I suspect….the pavement ran across the entrance to a ‘private’ industrial estate, thus forcing you into a busy road to continue your journey. Which is a pain. Still….WBC deserve real credit for improving and enabling our environment but there remain areas of the town, mostly the older un-developed parts, where drop kerbs are a rare sight and it’s incredibly hard, and unsafe, to get from a to b in your own community.

So, it’s good that there are signs of real improvements in drop kerb provision, perhaps a reflection of more people with influence understanding why this is such an important element of an accessible community…but what’s the point if you get new well designed drop kerbs and motorists / lorry drivers park right across the drop and block your access ? It happens, a lot, and a bit like that old defense you hear from drivers when parking in a blue badge space. “It was empty”…some motorists just don’t get it.

#Don’t Block the Drop is a hashtag for a campaign I can really identify with. This is serious stuff for millions of people but particularly the just under two million who use a wheelchair / powerchair. There is truly little as frustrating, or disabling, than spending half an hour making your way into a location, using pavements, safely, only then to get to a crossroads and find that the Drop Kerb has been blocked by a car or truck and the high six inch kerbs nearby prevent you ‘bouncing’ off and across the road, leading to you backtracking for ages to find an unblocked drop kerb. OTT ? Nope, this has happened to me a number of times. It’s a fact and it can seriously wreck your day.

Find out more about the campaign that asks #Dont Block the Drop

http://ow.ly/WvbN30bm4Fp

Cheers, Mark

 

Hail Doug Paulley’s cultural change but is the recent Supreme Court judgement really a win ?

Doug Paulley access to buses

Doug Paulley may have helped change the culture but the Supreme Court’s ruling on access to public buses doesn’t seem to have changed much……

Hail Doug Paulley’s cultural change but is the recent Supreme Court judgement really a win ?

In January this year I put together this blog piece for one of sites I occasionally write for and after having recently just been left sitting at a bus stop again because to be frank the hassle of taking on a parent with an intractable attitude and a fixed frame buggy and a driver who honestly looked like he wanted to be beamed up out of there quicker than Scotty ever was on the Star Ship Enterprise – well – I just wondered if anyone thinks the last five months have produced anything new for those who need to use the wheelchair space on our buses ?

Heres how I saw it earlier in the year, just after the Supreme Court ruling.

So, almost five years since he missed his lunch date with his Mum and Dad after being unable to board a bus thanks to the refusal of a buggy owner to move from the wheelchair space, Doug Paulley has his Supreme Court ruling. It was, we were told, a “win” and Doug deserves real credit for perseverance, commitment and guts to take on a multi national in defence of disabled people’s right to reasonable access on public transport.

But sadly I can’t see what’s really changed with this ruling ? Bus drivers may now need to try harder to “persuade” a parent to shift their buggy from the wheelchair space. Bus companies will, apparently, have to train them to be more persuasive. Yet the reality is that if your one of what in fairness I see as a small number of angry, intransigent buggy owners who refuse to disassemble their sometimes all-terrain armoured buggy, you ain’t going to be moved by this ruling.

So what happens next then ? Does this ruling honestly mean that bus drivers will, having failed to cleverly and genuinely persuade a buggy person to move, simply down tools and refuse to shift the bus until the stubborn, or uncaring, or just plain selfish parent sees sense and vacates the wheelchair space ? I suspect not a lot will happen differently to now.

This ruling may mean a longer pause at the stop whilst the harassed driver, now fully trained in the art of gentle persuasion, “requires by law” the parent to leave the wheelchair space. The ruling may increase awareness of the crucial importance to wheelchair users of their one and only means to travel on a bus. So drivers might, and let’s emphasise that might, feel emboldened and push harder for the buggy user to shift. Fewer of the stubborn minority might be, well, stubborn and actually leave the wheelchair space.

But here’s the thing, the ruling is clear, the driver cannot absolutely compel the buggy owner to move and cannot force them off the bus. Such action would to me be uncomfortable and embarrassing, albeit I’d get to travel. Put simply, though you wouldn’t want to see the law actioned in such a manner, without that final legal standing there’s just no teeth to this Supreme Court ruling.

All of which takes no account of the wheelchair users’ frequently desperate and even embarrassed attempt to avoid being the centre of bus user discontent or make life hard for bus drivers who, incidentally, are mostly only too willing to jump out of their cab and drop the ramp, despite what you might read in some places.

What we actually needed was a legal ruling ten years ago to compel all bus companies to provide two multi use spaces on buses, one primarily for wheelchair users and one normally for buggy folk. This way the chances of driver led conflict resolution being remotely necessary become vastly reduced, and the multi use design, albeit with disabled priority remaining, ensures a huge reduction in the times disabled people are left at bus stops. I know, once is too many, and I’m personally impacted by this, but my sense is that without this design requirement there honestly is NO way we will ever see a reasonable resolution here.

Even now a new law around the two space provision on newly built buses would be the real victory, this practical measure which, when coupled with the Supreme Courts ruling, would deliver a true leap in anti discrimination on public transport and at a stroke hugely increase the ability to travel on our public bus services for tens of thousands of disabled people.

Bus companies may not want this design imperative as it means thinking again about the existing design of many buses where single wheelchair space is the norm, as on some large double decker buses and frequently, their cousins, the small commuter style bus. The excuses around cost surely won’t stand up once the evidence of usage shows that the loss of seats is no hardship apart from a tiny percentage of journeys at peak times, even in places like central London currently consulting on reducing bus numbers on some routes.

Doug Paulley’s longest wait ever for a bus may bring some small but welcome measure of relief to the problem of getting left in the rain at the bus stop. We should hail his determination and accept his analysis around the cultural change that the ruling can deliver.

But my gut feeling is that little has happened here to change the reality, which is that drivers can struggle to get buggy users to do the decent thing and shift from the space, but let’s be clear, most parents and their buggies will continue to try to move or even fold things up to allow a wheelchair user the priority space they genuinely need. However, without a fit for purpose design on buses that delivers two not one space, on every vehicle, some buggy users will continue to look the other way and bus drivers will still be faced with an impossible situation where ultimately the buggy is the only winner.

Read the Guardian online’ take on this Supreme Court ruling from January 2017, honestly, has much changed ?

http://ow.ly/CJaR30891HJ

Mark Wilson

London Underground, a more accessible adventure !

Accessible

London Underground is getting more accessible

The London Underground really is getting to be more accessible. it’s an enabling adventure. The tube is old. Very old, well a lot of it, but surprisingly the 72 odd step free and or ramp accessible stations now give the wheelchair user and indeed many with an impairment of any kind, a few options. My focus tho has been on a step free accessible Tube following my shift from being ambulant disabled to using a powerchair.

I recently became a keen user of the London Tube when regularly visiting the city for business and leisure. and yes it can be a wee bit hairy at times. I had always thought using the Underground whilst on business or social outing to the capital a bit of a non-starter. However, the arrival of two new new lines, The Jubilee and the DLR (Docklands Light Railway) when used alongside the increasing number of step free stations across the network, actually gives you scope to get a long way on the tube, fast!  If your travel allows you the manouevre room, making use of some key step free hubs across the capital is really helpful. Of course it may mean you still end connecting to a bus route or walking / wheeling, but the tube may have at least taken some of the strain.

Traveling from the North I was made up to find that this ‘hub’ approach gives you decent step feee access to large parts of the network. St Pancras is just a few minutes away, the Victoria Line will link you Green Parks step free interchange to the Jubilee Line or stay onboard and the Victoria line will get you to hubs like Waterloo and recently accessible Vauxhall with its overground and bus interchanges. You can get North West from St Pancras, with a change at Green Park, to Wembley or the other direction all the way to the exciting development of Stratford City. Then in 2018 the amazing new Elizabeth Line / Crossrail will open up parts of central London and beyond to total step feee access where none previously existed. Still limited I know, and it often requires the same amount of planning as if you were invading a small country. But things are very slowly, too slowly, improving.

TfL’s step free station Underground map is your starting point. I’m geeky and there are a few maps that can greatly help the mobility impaired traveller. I actually enjoyed pouring over the main access maps which not only show you the totally step-free stations, but then add in those where you can get into the station via a lift, and then use a technically “on-demand” ramp with the help of station staff. There is even a guide to how large the gap is between platform and tube train….this is important as I know some wheelchair users are a bit hesitant about taking on the stations where that “gap” is at the largest because there are wheelchairs where small front castors can be an issue on the largest train to platform gap.

I have actually made time to ‘experiment’ which I know sounds sad. I have tried out several lines and stations, familiarized myself with the often long and winding step-free routes via a myriad of lifts and interchange subways.  if your a wheelchair user travelling the Underground at peak times it has to be a bit iffy, even when you know that list of step free stations in your sleep. The sheer volume of people at peak times means boarding a train can be tricky and in a powerchair you simply have to make a judgement which can entail waiting for the next, or even third, train when it doesn’t feel safe. Barging your way in isn’t great but I’m thinking my patience is that borne of a relatively infrequent commuter……those who use the tube every day, twice a day, may feel it’s harder to wait for a chance to power your way onboard.

But if you can plan your travel to avoid the very peak periods then step free really does mean what it says and my rear wheel drive Salsa coped admirably, albeit that getting off the train does entail a slight “bounce” as you hit the platform but most will handle that with no issues. The TfL staff were great, nothing was too much trouble and I have asked some dorky questions about lines and stations. Very dorky.

This all sounds a bit dull ! But for me it’s exciting because I suspect many will simply take being able to get from A to B using ALL forms of available transport for granted. Why wouldn’t they, few see the disabling aspects of the environment we live in unless it’s you being disabled by it. I felt the same way the first time I used a fully accessible London red bus, then other routes in cities across the UK.

The map shown will be hard to read as its a screenshot but there are free to download maps here:

http://ow.ly/eOeL3006MYV

and the specific step free Underground map is here : http://ow.ly/KAwf3006MHl

Maybe tube travel isn’t for everyone and I had to steel myself a couple of times as my infamous claustrophobia was challenged in a couple of packed trains but I managed it and yes, loved doing what most take for granted in having ready access to the Underground.

Cheers, Mark

Changing times, Changing Places, accessible toilets really matter

Accessible Changing times changing places

Changing times changing places, civilised loo breaks

Accessible toilets, Changing Places or Space to Change, it’s a serious thing for millions. When I finally gave up the wearing-tin-legs-thing and became a permanent wheelchair user, I suddenly found myself coming face to face with something I’d not really taken too much notice of before, a disabled or “accessible” toilet with a Radar lock. It used to drive me potty (see what I did there !) as I didn’t have a Radar Key and hated, absolutely hated, asking for one. I was scarred by an early bad experience in a lovely Waterstones book store in Liverpool when after I asked for a key the shop assistant bellowed, and I mean bellowed, “hey there’s a guy here needs to use our disabled toilet but can’t get in cos he’s not got the key thing, anyone know which draw it’s in as I don’t want to keep him waiting too long…”

I kid you not! I was mortified. The whole shop seemed to turn and checkout the guy desperate for a wee but with no key. It was hugely embarrassing and made me even more anti radar key. But I quickly mellowed ! I got hold of three keys and secured them in strategic places about my person, wheelchair bag or back up with my wife in her handbag! Accessible loos with radar key access are almost always more clean, not used by lazy selfish folk with no genuine need of the facility and somehow feel more private tho I’m not sure why!

But as many know, accessible loos are about more than a radar key. The Changing Places and Space to Change standards are slowly creating toilet facilities that recognise the needs of those who may need more space in a loo, a platform or actual bed to help change on and even a hoist. It’s a basic need this loo thing and frankly finding or not finding a good accessible loo can make or break a family trip out, a business meeting, or holiday travel or just a frantic days retail therapy.

Until you really understand just how few disabled / accessible loos there are in our public and yes, private, spaces you won’t ever really get it, but trust me, millions do get it and making the right provision available is one of the cornerstones of a truly enabled environment.

Have a read of this excellent article from Disability Horizons which gives the best take on Changing Places I have seen for ages.

http://ow.ly/KQij303gTHF

Cheers, Mark

Accessible Barcelona really is gorgeous !!

Gorgeous Barcelona

Gorgeous Barcelona, actually quite accessible !!

Gorgeous Barcelona. I have always wanted to visit the city, it’s certainly within reach but somehow I have never quite got round to it. But I loved Martyn Sibleys take on this fabulous city and I really loved the information he shared on one of the most accessible, integrated, “mainstream” hotels I’ve ever read about.
Mics Sant Jordi is the hotel and it looks a fabulous place to stay and heres the thing, thanks to Martyn’s video tour you get a relevant, clear, picture of accommodation that will suit most disabled travellers. But even better heres a hotel thats well located and is, well, just like a hotel ! This isnt a hospital dressed up as a hotel. This isnt some sterile dormitory set up. Heres a classy hotel in one of the most exciting cities in the world and its accessible to everyone!

Ok im doing the equivalent of a wheelchair blog dance here and it probably shows but this is exciting. We badly need more of these video style reviews that nail the key questions on access, costs, location etc. The only disappointing thing is that there are not more of these brilliant but essentially simple and straightforward presentations for every city!
Well done Martyn Sibley, well done Disability Horizons and well done Mic Saint Jordi, cannot wait to see more reviews like this one!

http://ow.ly/10o4Wb

Cheers, Mark

Accessible river cruising in Stratford Upon Avon

 

accessible river cruising

Accessible river cruising in the UK

Yes you can have accessible river cruising in the U.K. !!

Always wanted to cruise in a river boat? Here’s how!

Whilst visiting Windsor recently we were disappointed but not really surprised to find that not one of the river boats were reasonably accessible to a wheelchair user. So it’s great to see that those champions of accessible travel, The Bimblers, have unearthed a real gem here, accessible cruising in the gorgeous Stratford upon Avon.

Have a read and find out more! Oh and whilst your about it, follow The Bimblers !
http://ow.ly/10iOyT

Cheers, Rustyman