Musings - NYC & mobility

New York is a great town. It's compact, with a great subway system, and plenty to see, do, buy, and eat (as my few weeks there will testify).  But I wouldn't want to try to navigate it if I wasn't able to walk briskly and climb stairs. New York would suck mightily if you were wheelchair-bound, or can't manage stairs, or are pushing a pram.

The subway
Now I know the subway is old, with the first underground line opening in 1904. But the Americans with Disabilities Act became law in 1990, mandating access to public transportation among others. However, as at August 2010, two decades on, only 89 of the 468 subway stations are ADA-compliant.  There are a few more that are wheelchair-accessible, but it's still not a great proportion.  And I saw more than one subway-station elevator out of order, too, which reduces that number even further, with bonus randomness.

Conversely, all but one of Melbourne's 200 metropolitan train stations are wheelchair-accessible, as are all the trains (the driver has a ramp) although only some of the trams (the main inner city/inner suburb form of public transport) are wheelchair accessible, and an increasing number of tram stops.

And it's not just people in wheelchairs who need, or at least appreciate, access to public transport that doesn't involve stairs. Bodgy hips and knees can make life with stairs difficult. As can prams or strollers. Or even just heavy and/or awkward luggage.

Building entrances
America really hasn't embraced the automatic door. Yes, they're in a few places, but overwhelmingly the doors to shops and other buildings are narrow, heavy, outwardly opening doors.  Or revolving doors, which suck even harder if you are in a wheelchair/slow-moving/have a pram.  The climate arguments (it gets really hot! it gets really cold!) don't hold water.  Yes revolving doors are good for maintaining internal climatic conditions, but so are airlocks (two sets of doors, a few metres apart).  And revolving doors require that you have a regular door adjacent to it, precisely because they are unusable if you can't walk briskly, which completely destroys the climate-control reason.

In fact, all the automatic doors I did encounter had big signs (A5 size) at eye level warning "Automatic Door. Keep Moving" and a big upwards-pointing arrow circled in green. Because clearly they are so new-fangled they require explicit instructions. Here, it's the non-automatic doors that require labels as they are the odd-ones-out.

On the other hand, there is one thing that it very widely automated. Toilet flushing. Because (presumably) that's something people forget or need help with.  And because of the high water mark in traditional US dunnies, if you get one with an overly sensitive sensor, every time you lean forward it thinks you're done and you get a wet arse. Here, you're shit out of luck (so to speak) - you gotta push the button yourself. Because it's so hard to do.