I was discussing with another handicapped person the problems of mobility. I think there has been a good faith effort to make things as accessible as possible. I don’t think people who are not handicapped realize the problems we face. In a local town here, there are handicapped parking places. They haven’t been thoroughly thought out. Once you transfer from the car to your wheelchair at the handicapped parking place, you will find no way to get up to the sidewalk. You are forced to go out into the street behind the parked cars into traffic. From there, you have to go to the end of the block to find the cut that gives you access to the sidewalk.
My other unfavorite one probably only occurs here in the North, where they choose to use two doors at an entrance to keep heat inside. You open the very outside door and wheel yourself inside. The exterior door closes. You can’t open the inside door because the wheelchair takes up too much space between the two doors, and you can’t open the exterior door to give you room to open the inside door. From a wheelchair, you can’t control two doors. You are stuck there until the good Samaritan comes along and lets you in.
Another unfavorable one is where they have provided a button for you to push to enter the building. Exterior doors have to open outward. Some bright person has put the button to open the door on the door’s left side, the hinge side. If it’s a fast opening door, you can’t get out of the way of the opening door to enter the building. If you’re unfortunate, the door will push you and your wheelchair out into the street!
