By continuing you agree to eChinacities's Privacy Policy .
Sign up with Google
Sign up with Facebook
Q: Wheelchair access revolution/progress.. noticeable in new construction?
I was at a beautiful new park yesterday.... wheelchair access ramps were abundant at the entry's and exits and throughout the paths in the park. Only thing different about these and the ones I know of back home, was that they all had a pipe about 6" off the ground to limit access to the access... Love my e-bike.
9 years 46 weeks ago in Health & Safety - China
I actually think a lot of new places are pretty good. Our community has on two sides a river, along the river there are ramps to get to a awesome walkway along the river, all is well. Sadly from the park between the buildings, to the walkway, not all exits are wheelchair friendly. The walkway and the community are obviously different construction projects, with disconnects. But better than nothing.
Scandinavian:
our building, from 2009, has 3 entrances. 2 above ground, one in the parking basement. Originally only the one in the parking basement was wheelchair accessible, but they recently added a ramp at one of the above ground doors (there are 3 small steps, nothing I couldn't be dared to drive down in a wheelchair after sufficient alcohol) AFAIK, there are no disabled people in our building, maybe they cater to all the prams.
humbug:
It's the same in my community! There are a few ramps up to walkways but they're all roads to nowhere... the other side won't have a ramp, and so a person in a wheelchair would have to turn around and go back, or do some kind of BMX style jump back down again
I think new builds are pretty good here in GZ. From what I have seen.
The metro system has almost ok wheelchair access. But not every station.
Having said that, some new build places I have been to present challanges to the able bodied. You know the sort of thing, unfenced stairwells set into pathways and such like. One false step and you are going down a 10" drop.
Seen some pretty accessible places in Anhui province (Hefei, etc)... but only in a few places, namely Wal-Mart entrances. The rest of it has been abysmal.
Hopefully they'll pick up the slack and realize that China has a very large disabled population who needs accessibility.
Depends on the projects I guess, but have no illusion, the facilities might look like they're there, but the truth is most of them is disfunctionnal, or has simply never been used/intended to be used. Like many things, they're display trinkets, so the local government can boast on TV for a while (about how their city is following HK's standards) and/or place orders with friendly factories. Once the self-praise is done, all that crap can collect the dust.
Here in Harbin it's also fairly patchy for people with mobility issues. Most of the new buildings do seem to have taken such people into consideration when designing and building the project, although I sometimes see some pretty poor examples of it, such as a ramp at my local bookstore that looks at least 45 degrees and therefore likely to have the wheelchair user kissing the footpath if they tried to use it unassisted.
In any case, the whole effort is largely wasted because the footpaths are just not navigable by anyone who needs to use a wheelchair or other mobility device. Until the rights of pedestrians, able bodied and otherwise, are taken seriously and footpaths are no longer considered car parks, then all the other stuff looks pretty tokenistic, really.
I think that bookstore ramp is for the delivery guys to roll their wheely things - whatever it is they're called -up and down, not for wheelchairs.
