Too many hurdles for the disabled to clear
Should the disabled have the right to access public transit? That’s a silly question. Of course, they should. Everyone would agree, including the BTS boss, Anat Arbhabhirama, and the Bangkok governor, Pol Gen Asawin Kwanmuang.
So you would think the disabled in this city would be able to make trips to work or run errands as close to conveniently as everybody else. That, as we all know, is also a silly assumption because it is completely contrary to the reality on the ground.
It is intolerable that a disabled person, Manit Intharapim, had to resort to a form of violence in order to bring attention to what the court has already decided was his basic right.
His frustration is completely understandable. The hardship he had to endure from the first step out of his home to the BTS train station was compounded by an inaccessible lift. An inaccessible lift is nothing but a useless and ugly structure, taking up precious space.
And then to be asked to sign a form to verify that he was truly disabled when his disability was plain for all to see is a humiliation beyond belief.
The right of the disabled to access the public transit was affirmed by the Supreme Administrative Court more than three years ago when it gave the Bangkok administration a year to install lifts at all BTS stations.
That date has been postponed numerous times. As recently as March last year, Pol Gen Asawin told the public that all stations would have functional lifts by the end of the year.
I’m not sure who is worse — him for postponing the completion of lift installation or Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha for postponing the election date. One thing I’m sure: Their words will no longer be taken seriously by an increasingly sceptical public.
However, attention drawn to the inaccessible lift is too narrow a focus on the difficulties the disabled have to face daily.
A while ago, I watched a video clip of Mr Manit, the disabled rights activist, filming himself getting from a parking lot to — if my memory serves me correctly — a BTS station. A trip that ordinarily would take an able-bodied person no more than five minutes took him about 15 minutes.
Ordinary structures like metal grates over sewers that we normally cross without a bother became a challenge for his wheelchair. To get from the street level onto some footpaths became a real hurdle. If his arms were not so strong, he wouldn’t be able to make it.
And he was able to make it to his destination only because the footpaths he took were miraculously unoccupied and navigable.
Bangkok must rank near the top of the most disability-unfriendly metropolises in the world.
Not only are most footpaths overtaken by street hawkers, motorcyclists and numerous structures installed by authorities, but simply trying to cross busy streets is hazardous to able-bodied people, let alone those in wheelchairs. For the blind, it would be suicidal.
And don’t even mention pedestrian bridges to wheelchair-bound people. They are ugly, intrusive, obstructive and sometimes dangerous.
However, the most daunting hurdle for the disabled is public ignorance and a lack of empathy.
City residents live hectic lives and have little time to pay attention to the struggles of less fortunate fellow citizens, except for occasionally putting change into donation boxes held out by some poor disabled person. For many, the disabled might as well be invisible. They would rather avoid contact with people not as “normal” as they are.
It’s perhaps understandable that most people are not comfortable around disabled people; they simply don’t know how to behave or communicate with them.
Yet many people, by words or deeds, question the value of having facilities for the disabled. That’s why we witness all the time people without disabilities parking their vehicles in spaces reserved for the disabled.
They probably think why leave empty spaces go to waste; there won’t be so many disabled who can drive anyway.
Their attitude is often validated by the people supervising those parking facilities who routinely neglect to enforce the handicapped parking rule.
This attitude is akin to that of people who mindlessly drive in emergency lanes on highways or expressways. They figure why leave the lanes unused when “I” can go faster than everybody else.
What they are unable to comprehend is that in many instances they prevent emergency vehicles from getting to their destinations in time to save lives.
I suspect that the numerous barriers the disabled have to face in their daily life and the lack of public empathy are important reasons why disabled people do not seem to be out and about more often in public. They are probably sick and tired of being dependent on others instead of being self-reliant.
As able-bodied people, we can only imagine but never fathom the level of hardship that disabled people have to go through in life.
The least we can do, however, is to provide facilities and convenience to meet their needs in an empathetic and sincere manner so that we can achieve as close to social equality as possible.
We can only imagine but never fathom the hardship that disabled people have to go through in life.