Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Ventura's great service

This morning the automatic ramp on the bus was not working properly but I managed to scramble on board before the ramp folded up. The driver reported the problem to the depot and a mechanic was sent to my destination stop to ensure that I was able to get off without any problems. Ventura phoned twice to check I was OK.

A great busline!

Friday, September 11, 2009

Rydges Hotel doesn't cater for wheelchairs

At a conference at the Rydges Hotel on Swanston St, I asked to be directed to the disabled toilet. The girl on the desk told me that the hotel had no disabled facilities, had no rooms with disabled access and no disabled toilet. I eventually found a disabled toilet on the fourth floor, no thanks to the staff. The only way to access this hotel in a wheelchair is via the underground car park.

It is hard to believe that such a well known brand would make no attempt to cater for people in wheelchairs.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Public transport for the disabled is a joke

The Federal Disability Act of 1992 sets out compliance requirements for disabled access to public transport.

Compliance is to be achieved over a 30-year period from 2002, with interim progress requirements of 25%, 55%, 90% and 100% by the end of 2007, 2012, 2017 and 2022 respectively.

There are some significant exceptions to this, such as trains and trams have until 2032 to achieve the last 10% of full compliance.

This means that by the end of 2012 only 55% of public transport has to be accessible by disabled people and it will be 2032 before all public transport is wheelchair friendly!

Currently 100 trams out of 451 in the fleet are low-floor trams accessible by wheelchairs. However, these can only be entered at special platform stops limiting their usefulness. Don't forget that many of these platform stops are on tram lines that don't have low-floor trams. It would appear that there are only low-floor trams on 4 routes (according to http://www.doi.vic.gov.au/DOI/Internet/transport.nsf/AllDocs/E74041B4E64DF676CA256FC6001AEFC6?OpenDocument). Why have special platform stops without low-floor trams - perhaps some genius in the government can explain that but it makes no sense to me whatsoever??

To make matters worse, low-floor trams have specialist maintenance needs, which are only available at 2 of the 8 tram depots meaning "It is difficult to guarantee that any particular service will have a low-floor tram, and for these reasons the approach has been to fully convert tram routes to low-floor operations." (letter from Patrick O'Neil, Chief of Staff, Office of the Minister for Public Transport and the Arts)

However, it will be 2032 before this needs to be completed!

We have lots of money to give to people as tax cuts and to give to private schools but no money for disabled access to public transport?

For example, the 2009-10 State Budget includes a $5 million commitment to speed up the delivery of up to 50 new low-floor trams. This "speeding up the delivery" means that the first of these low-floor trams will begin arriving in 2012/13. If "speeding up" is getting a new tram in 3-4 years I would hate to see the normal speed.

Scotch College is going to get an additional $16 million dollars from the government (http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/private-schools-cash-boost-20090908-fg0r.html) but we have only 5 million dollars to speed up tram deliveries!

And we live in a fair society? How come a couple of thousand students at one of the most expensive schools in Australia that is not lacking in facilities is able to get $16 million dollars and 300,000 people that the government admits have difficulty accessing public transport get a lousy $5 million!

Camberwell shops not for wheelchairs

The Camberwell Trader's Association's slogan is "we've got it all". However if you are in a wheelchair this is not true as almost 40% of the shops are not wheelchair accessible!

A staggering 145 shops out of a total of 373 businesses in the Camberwell Junction shopping area have steps that prevent wheelchair entry.

This situation is simply not allowed in the USA as legislation prevents this type of discrimination but apparently "it would be too expensive" to do the same here. Therefore, Australian businesses can discriminate to their heart's desire. Surprisingly, having to comply with anti-discrimination legislation in the USA hasn't led to the economic disaster that local legislators claim it would if introduced here.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Taxi absence

Called a taxi from a hotel where I was sheltering from the rain at 3:30 pm. After 45 minutes the taxi company could not find a taxi prepared to take me so could not give any estimate for how long I was going to have to wait. Therefore, I gave up waiting and had to go in the rain to the bus stop. On the bus I saw quite a few maxi-taxis driving around close to the hotel.

Why are there no taxis for people in wheelchairs (or taxis prepared to pick up wheelchairs)? This problem happens all the time in Melbourne but never, and I mean never, in Sydney. Wheelchair taxis are so unreliable in Melbourne that they are not a viable means of transport.