Podcast: 100% Universal Design with Sunday Parker

This week on the podcast: Transit advocate Sunday Parker discusses access for people with disabilities. We talk about the design of transit stations, the layout of the new BART train cars and what that means for different types of users, the idea of universal design and access in the overall built environment, and our best transit days.

The Others

John over at RT Rider has an interesting post about his observations of a lady who clearly didn't feel comfortable at the bus stop with folks that weren't like her. This comes on the same day that I have a discussion with a person I had invited to a concert next week. Since the show is downtown, I asked if we could meet somewhere off of Muni so she didn't have to walk through a somewhat seedy part of Market Street by herself. She responded that she didn't take transit. Oh she'd tried it a few times but transit had always let her down.

The first thing that came to mind was oh man, we are not going to get along, the second was, how much different is the transit riding experience to females than it is to someone such as me who is somewhat tall, somewhat driven to take transit, and can be a bit scary myself when I haven't shaved in a bit? Would ridership go up if the situation were improved such that females felt safer and more comfortable on transit? I know many girls that are pretty hardcore about transit and aren't worried at all. But then there are those that I know that don't like to take it, especially alone. I think improving it for those types would improve it for everyone. Is that a standard to meet?

Epic ADA Fail

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How many of you have seen this type of bad building in your cities around transit? This example above isn't directly transit related, but it shows how sometimes we just aren't doing it right. I took a class in college where my professor discussed universal design, whereby we create places that are accessible for people with disabilities, without having to make special accommodations. It's as easy as making the front door level with the ground without putting in a step.

In the transit world, this means low floor buses/trains and lower ramps. The Portland streetcar and its ramp is a perfect example, it doesn't take a huge lift to get wheelchairs into the vehicle, and it doesn't take 10 minutes to load someone up either. As far as I know, low floor light rail vehicles are now the norm rather than the exception. Some places are even ultra low floor such as this Siemens ULF in Vienna I got to ride.