Look closely at this photo of Faggotgirl heralding a small sign near the exit from the NYC subway. She is heralding it with a Damning ARM DOWN. Say you heard of “The Oculus” at the World Trade Center in New York City, and would like to visit it. NYC is one of the richest building-boom cities on the planet. Surely new memorial buildings with billion-dollar budgets will be fully accessible, right? WRONG.
After traveling godknowshowfar and arriving on the E train at the World Trade Center, this tiny MTA sign (if you can find it, also no announcements or Braille) directs people who don’t use stairs to:
Take the E train to 14th street.
Then to “Take Bus Service” whatever that means.
Say you decide to fight through this ABLEIST BULLCRAP AS USUAL, and decide to try again to get back to EXACTLY WHERE YOU ALREADY ARE, just 20 ft higher.
Here are the google directions for this 30 minute journey to get back to the place you were standing:
Take the E (you just got out of) to 14th Street.
Proceed east 0.2 miles to 7th Ave
The directions on Google Maps say “walk” which could be insulting to some but let’s continue:
Then find a bus map (lol lol LMFAO) and figure out which bus you’ll need to take to World Trade Center.
Board an M20 bus(hopefully the lift is working).
Ride the M20 for 21 minutes if there’s no traffic.
Exit the bus and proceed 0.4 miles (8 minutes)
And here’s what you’ll find: A high-end MALL. Also, people who don’t use stairs will have a wildly different experience of the space. This is Unexcusable. Universal Design must be mandatory and enforced. Universal Design means that THE WAY YOU MOVE IN THE WORLD DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE A BETTER OR WORSE EXPERIENCE OF IT. Period.
Federal ADA standards just say “disabled people” (hate that term) have to be “accommodated.” That is FAR TOO LOW a standard. We need to insist that any public money, and also private money, used to build anything respects all kinds of bodies and techniques for experiencing the world. Let’s make it so.
It is NOT that deep — Accessibility is a design and management issue, for COLLECTIVE SOLUTIONS, not for individual isolation, exclusion or pity.
FINALLY 2 lawsuits against the MTA are filed!!
http://dralegal.org/press/unprecedented-dual-class-action-suits-filed-today-challenging-new-york-city-subway-systems-illegal-discrimination-wheelchair-users-others/
(that’s the NYC subways and bus system)
Don’t even DRAW ME ON about what anyone could possibly want to buy there. Maybe they have Twin Tower salt and pepper shakers there. Sad!
OH MY GOD IT GETS WORSE!
Two days after I posted this rant, the roof of the Oculus LEAKED LIKE A SIEVE. You can’t make this up, folks. 
