Life on Wheels (97 page)

Even in the smallest towns, there are movie theaters, playhouses, sports events, restaurants, concerts, and other activities that you will want to attend. In larger cities, there might be the symphony, opera, museums, or tourist attractions.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) now requires all public facilities owned by private entities to be made accessible. Public facilities include restaurants and bars, theaters and stadiums, convention centers and lecture halls, shopping centers, retail stores, libraries, museums, zoos, amusement parks, schools, social service centers (including homeless shelters), and recreation facilities such as gymnasiums, health spas, and golf courses. The language of the law is that these facilities may not “refuse service or deny participation” in an activity. They must provide access under the reasonable accommodation provisions of the ADA or else establish alternative service. If you cannot enter a store, for instance, the store personnel are required to provide curb or home delivery service at no extra cost to you.

Most theaters, sports arenas, concert venues, and museums in the United States and Canada now provide substantial access. This is increasingly true in Europe where, for instance, the Louvre and Musee D’Orsay in Paris are fully and easily accessible. Some facilities will even offer you a discounted entrance fee. In some cases, you will need to go around to a side entrance, which should be clearly marked by an access symbol, but, in general, you have a good chance of getting in the front door and of being able to park nearby.

Seating in theaters and stadiums is more complex. There are a limited number of seats dedicated to wheelchair users, and those seats might or might not be well spaced throughout the facility. Often the accessible seating is toward the back of the theater or away from the lower levels of the stadium or arena. This limited choice of seating can be frustrating. It’s wise to get tickets early, since those seats sometimes sell out faster than the rest of the venue. Recently built movie theaters have widely adopted “arena” style seating, in which there is literally only one row that is accessible in the middle of the theatre.

Typically, spaces are left open between or next to regular seats for a wheelchair user to park, but some riders prefer to get out of the chair to sit in an upholstered seat at a movie or concert. When that is the case, the question arises of where to park the wheelchair. If you want to sit closer to the screen at a movie, odds are you will have to allow your wheelchair to be parked elsewhere by a companion or a theater employee, particularly if it has a rigid frame. An unfolded wheelchair will be too much of an obstruction in the aisle, and even a folded chair is likely to violate fire codes, which require exit ways to be kept open. These restrictions might affect your choice of where to sit if you are uncomfortable being away from your chair or reliant on others to bring it to you in case of an emergency.

Many sports arenas have begun to install a system of seats that can be folded up and out of the way to allow a wheelchair to park in the remaining space. That method of construction gives you the option of staying in your chair or not and lets chair users have more options for where to sit throughout the arena. The arena can also sell more seats to ablebodied customers as the event begins to sell out, rather than having to leave spaces empty that could only have been used by a wheelchair rider.

A key problem arises around how many people you might want to have along at an event. If you want to make plans with a group of a dozen friends, you might have a lot of trouble getting that many seats together. Chair users want the freedom to make plans with a group like anyone else. On the other hand, the facility needs to preserve the accessible seating for those who need it, limiting its use by people who can walk. When you call for tickets to an event, be prepared to hear that you are only allowed one “attendant” to be with you in the disabled seating section. In some cases, this is a policy of the ticket-selling agency. If you call the arena or team offices, you might find someone willing to sell you the tickets you need.

The wheelchair seats are sometimes the best in the house. A platform might be set up at a large arena concert with the most unobstructed view in the place. It is also not unusual for a performance space to allow wheelchair users in first to avoid the crowd, which can mean you get the pick of the seats. As you attend events at local venues, you will learn their policies, how to get the best seats, when to arrive, and how to get around.

Having control of where you go makes a big difference in how much you can accomplish. All of the therapy and adaptive devices in the world don’t mean much if you can’t get to a job, run a simple errand, or meet your spouse for coffee. Freedom to move and go where you want is also central to your sense of self.

Public transportation has come a long way. In major cities, buses are now widely equipped with lifts. There are seats on the bus that lift out of the way, revealing a clamp that holds onto a wheel. There is also a seat belt. The drivers are trained in the operation of the lift and how to assist wheelchair-using passengers. The quality of service varies:

When you use city buses regularly, you will encounter a variety of conditions and drivers:

Cities such as New York, Washington, Portland, and San Francisco have rail systems and subways that provide varying degrees of accessibility. Northern California’s BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) system has accessible cars and stations but has had problems with the maintenance of the elevators from the street level. In 1998, a judge ordered BART to increase its efforts and spending to ensure that elevators are kept clean and operating and that the system in general remains accessible.

Most cities offer a paratransit service, with which you can make an appointment to be picked up and taken directly to your destination. Once you qualify through an application, the service is made available at modest cost. Unfortunately, the quality and reliability of paratransit services vary widely, with many people finding that they cannot rely on the service to be on time or even to show up in some cases. For transportation to a job, paratransit is not usually a good solution. If you want to get to a store or the park for a little sun, you can afford to be a little late or go the next day if the driver doesn’t show up. Do some research. You might be lucky enough to be in a city with a well-run system.

There is little, if any, public transportation to choose from for many people outside of urban areas. Some will be able to rely on neighbors or family to get a ride and have this suffice for their transportation needs. However, greater access to public transit options might be enough to convince rural wheelchair users to move to a larger metropolitan area.

Inadequate transportation is more likely to be a problem for those with disabilities, finds the 2000 NOD/Harris Survey of Americans with Disabilities:

For many wheelchair users, the ideal transportation is their own vehicle— car, van, or truck. Driver’s training and lessons in how to load a wheelchair are often included in rehabilitation programs or offered on an outpatient basis.

You will develop your own method for loading a wheelchair in a car. Folding chair users who drive a two-door car generally put the chair in the back seat by sliding over to the passenger side, pulling the driver seat forward, and then pulling the folded chair in by rolling it in over the rocker panel. People using a rigid frame chair remove the wheels and lift the frame—with the back folded down against the seat—over their torso onto the passenger seat or back into the rear seat. Those driving a four-door vehicle generally enter from the passenger side, pulling the chair in after them and securing it with the seat belt. Folding and lifting a chair in and out of a car every day can be fatiguing in the long term, causing wear and tear on the arms and shoulders. Ultralight wheelchair frames might allow you to drive a sedan rather than a van.

Quadriplegics with enough balance but not the strength to throw their chairs around, or people who need to be able to drive from their wheelchair, have many option for adapted vehicles. A number of companies specialize in minivan conversion. They lower the floor so a ramp can be used instead of a mechanical lift (Figure 8-1), install a kneeling system to bring the van lower to the ground to reduce the ramp angle, and put in tie-down systems to keep the wheelchair secure during driving, whether or not you stay in the chair. The door, ramp or lift, and door locks are controlled by switches in the vehicle as well as by a remote control that you keep on your keychain.

Hand controls on vehicles can be electronic or manual. Electronic controls manipulate the brake cylinder or engine components, such as the fuel injectors, and are initiated by a joystick or other controller in the cabin (Figure 8-2). Manual controls are mechanical devices attached directly to the pedals, usually supported by the steering column.

Electronic controls are generally used by people with minimal upper arm capacity. Installation is complex, more training is required to operate them, and they are much more costly. Programming features set the sensitivity of a joystick or button and allow people with limited arm strength to control the transmission, accelerator, and brake.

Manual hand controls brake by pushing forward on whatever control lever is used. There are no gears or linkages for the brake—the control uses a strong rod attached directly to the brake pedal so that there can be no possibility of failure.