Article: Transport failing disabled

[ozbob]

From the Melbourne Age click here!

Transport failing disabled

Transport failing disabled
Clay Lucas
September 2, 2011

VICTORIA'S public transport system is failing people with disabilities and needs a rethink to ensure all trips on trains, trams and buses are accessible, research from the Victorian Council of Social Service shows.

The Creating Accessible Journeys report, published yesterday, showed there had been a major breakdown in providing public transport infrastructure that made the system accessible for all.

The report criticises the focus by public transport agencies on making isolated pieces of public transport infrastructure that were compliant with disability laws - but ignored how these pieces fit together.

It points to a number of glaring examples of these failures, including tram platform stops (''superstops'') built on routes where no low-floor trams run, and railway stations built without ramps, but lifts that frequently broke down, stranding people in wheelchairs.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/transport-failing-disabled-20110901-1jo42.html

[ozbob]

From the Melbourne Age click here!

Train passengers let down by lifts at $93m station

Train passengers let down by lifts at $93m station
Clay Lucas
September 8, 2011

LIFTS at a recently rebuilt western suburbs railway station have broken more than 100 times in 10 months, repeatedly leaving wheelchair passengers stranded on platforms or unable to get to trains.

The $93 million Laverton station, which opened last year, has stairs and lifts to get people onto platforms. Unlike most other stations with elevated entrances, it has no ramps.

Complaints to the Department of Transport about the station after it reopened were passed to train operator Metro. It in turn said the department had been responsible for the station's design, but attempted to resolve the issue by giving disabled passengers taxi vouchers to get to other railway stations with ramps.
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Greens MP Colleen Hartland tabled a question in Parliament asking how many times the lifts at Laverton broke down between July 2010 and last April.

Transport Minister Terry Mulder told Parliament in his reply that they were inoperative on 105 occasions. And he said that a $15 million footbridge at Footscray station, also built last year without ramps, had lifts that broke down 117 times over the same period.

''It is quite clear that they didn't put any thought into these two stations,'' Ms Hartland said.

The stations were unsafe without ramps, she said, because in an emergency wheelchair passengers and parents with prams needed an alternative to broken lifts. ''They need ramps at these stations before someone is seriously injured.''

Altona Meadows resident Shanika Dannangoda was at the station yesterday with her daughter Hasara, and the lifts were working. Ms Dannangoda said she had previously carried her pram down the station's steep stairs when the lifts were out.

''Luckily my parents were there. If they hadn't been and someone wanted to help me I could've done it, but you can't expect people to come and help you all the time. For a wheelchair person it's even worse.''

Ms Dannangoda couldn't understand why the ramps on the old station hadn't been replaced. ''It was easier to walk on the ramp rather than climbing up a heap of stairs.''

Mr Mulder said the former government approved plans to build the station without ramps. ''Commuters left stranded at places like Laverton and Footscray have every right to be angry,'' he said.

But he stopped short of promising to install ramps at the two stations - although escalators and perhaps ramps will be installed as part of a pending Footscray station upgrade.

Mr Mulder said lifts at both stations needed fixing quickly when they broke. ''I have spoken to the department and Metro about this.''

The reliability of the lifts at Laverton has not been the only problem. A man who died at the station last year had to be carried out across tracks because an ambulance trolley would not fit in the lifts.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/train-passengers-let-down-by-lifts-at-93m-station-20110907-1jxqt.html

[ozbob]

A number of us have raised concerns with the failure to incorporate ramps and subways at a number of recent efforts in SEQ as well.

Chickens coming home to roost!  Something seriously wrong with the design concepts of many modern systems, they constantly fail.  And often many repeat attempts to fix up botches, obvious to most except the designers and those who approve such follies.

Ramps and subways don't fail in quite the same way!