The concept of universal design is to make things safer, easier and more convenient for everyone.
And here’s the thing – by applying universal design, accessibility and inclusion become invisible. It’s seamless. You don’t notice is because it isn’t noticeable. It just is.
Unfortunately, universal design isn’t something that is embraced by the wider community.
Over the last 11 years or so, we’ve had some great experiences. And also some horrible experiences of exclusion and segregation.
I love the days when we go out and we are jut a family. No special anything. No disability this or that. No questions about whether something will be accessible. We just go out and everything takes care of itself.
And then there are the frustrating days where everywhere you look, there are steps. The accessible toilet is either locked, disgustingly dirty, there’s no room because of the baby change table or if you hit the jackpot, all three. Where doing anything is a fight and most of the time, the fight just isn’t worth it and we go home.
Our local high school has a highly successful farmers market. It’s a small market with great bargains where I can get fruit, vegetables, bread and the most delicious pizzas in the space of ten minutes and then go home.
Clearly as part of running the market, the organisers have been told that they have to provide two accessible car spaces (designated by removable signs). The car park has two spaces right at the front with a walkway in between them, giving plenty of space for wheelchairs to get out of cars and safely transfer to the farmers market.
You would think these would be the best spaces to designate as accessible parks, right?
WRONG.
No. The designated accessible car spaces are at opposite ends of the car park – the very end parks on either side – narrow spaces where you open your car door straight onto the kerb and exit out of your vehicle via the garden.
It’s the myth of accessibility. Just because you designate the car spaces as accessible, it doesn’t make them so.
And that’s where the problem lies. Legislation and Regulations tell businesses, builders, architects, planners that they have to provide for people with disabilities. So they make the token effort, leaving me wondering why they even bothered. But that’s because they were told they had to.
That’s how you end up with accessible toilets at the bottom of stairs, with bathrooms with narrow doorways and not enough room to swing a cat. With steps instead of ramps, segregated areas for the person with a disability and their carer (but no more than one carer because people with disabilities don’t have friends or family), fences, barricades and barriers.
The sad part is that by using the concepts of universal design, you make it so much easier for everyone. Not just people with disabilities. There is no longer segregation or exclusion. No adaptions. And people won’t notice how accessible it is.
Because it just is.
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