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sabotabbyRather than spend money to make the city more accessible, New York City has decided to replace signage with the old accessibility symbol with a new one.
The one you've all seen:
The new one:
Er.
The major problems with this have already been pointed out in the comments, but to recap:
1. It's visually cluttered with the useless second wheel.
2. It looks like a Cubist Goatse.
3. If your posture was like that in an actual wheelchair, you would probably be falling out of it.
4. Wait, where's the back of the wheelchair?
5. It presents a patronizing view of all disabled people being inspirational wheelchair athletes or some such.
My problem is mainly #1 (hilariously ironic, considering the number of visually impaired people who will have difficulty reading it) and #5 (no matter how spunky you make your representation of disability, it still sucks to get around in a wheelchair in pretty much every place I've ever been to). It's yet another example of well-meaning people doing something to feel as though they're doing something.
By the way, there's nothing wrong with visually static icons in signage. Washroom signs (portraying able-bodied, gendered people) are pretty static looking:
(Though I vastly prefer the ones David Carson shows in this video, as they do away with silly gender essentialist norms altogether and focus on the practicalities.)
Anyway. Progress, or major headdesk moment: Discuss!
The one you've all seen:
The new one:
Er.
The major problems with this have already been pointed out in the comments, but to recap:
1. It's visually cluttered with the useless second wheel.
2. It looks like a Cubist Goatse.
3. If your posture was like that in an actual wheelchair, you would probably be falling out of it.
4. Wait, where's the back of the wheelchair?
5. It presents a patronizing view of all disabled people being inspirational wheelchair athletes or some such.
My problem is mainly #1 (hilariously ironic, considering the number of visually impaired people who will have difficulty reading it) and #5 (no matter how spunky you make your representation of disability, it still sucks to get around in a wheelchair in pretty much every place I've ever been to). It's yet another example of well-meaning people doing something to feel as though they're doing something.
By the way, there's nothing wrong with visually static icons in signage. Washroom signs (portraying able-bodied, gendered people) are pretty static looking:
(Though I vastly prefer the ones David Carson shows in this video, as they do away with silly gender essentialist norms altogether and focus on the practicalities.)
Anyway. Progress, or major headdesk moment: Discuss!
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no subject
Date: 2013-05-25 05:46 pm (UTC)Fucking stupid for all the reasons you mention, particularly the waste of money when there was nothing wrong with the old sign (which is also pretty much universally recognized across a range of different countries).
Oy vey.
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Date: 2013-05-25 07:10 pm (UTC)They aren't spunky and inspirational enough, I guess.
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Date: 2013-05-25 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-05-26 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-05-26 11:59 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-05-25 11:41 pm (UTC)I live in NYC and I didn't even know about this. Several (10+) years ago, there was an organization for the disabled called "Project Outward Bound" which created predictable confusion in everyone who first heard the name. I met someone who worked in that office, for instance; he had like triple Ph.Ds and was a certified genius, but could barely speak. He told me he worked at "Outward Bound," while pushing himself backward in his wheelchair with his feet; I was suitably impressed. ("Project Outward Bound" changed its name to "Barrier-Free Living" not long after.)
The only problem I've ever seen with the old one is only that many people with disabilities don't use wheelchairs at all. (I have a cognitive disability and significant brain damage, but am ambulatory.) This whole thing is like getting rid of Mr. Zip, and was probably just undertaken to make work for some graphic designer.
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Date: 2013-05-25 11:55 pm (UTC)This is the problem with what some would term political correctness and I would call euphemism. If no one understands what your organization's name/your municipal signage/your learning disability diagnosis is supposed to mean, it's not very effective or helpful.
I'm okay with people using a wheelchair as shorthand for all mobility-related disabilities, because there's no way you're going to get them all in there, and it's the easiest to recognize in icon form.
Designers definitely need work, so I don't have a problem with that as such. I just would rather that money go to putting elevators in the subways or something.
(My closest subway stop, predictably, has no elevators. The escalators only go up and are separated by some stairs put there as a fuck-you to disabled people.)
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Date: 2013-05-26 01:24 pm (UTC)I was on a disability chit for about six months there, a couple of years ago when my back, shoulder, hips, and knee all conspired to make little things like getting in and out of the car or, you know, even standing pretty much a challenge of which inspirational movies are made. Except it's probably not very inspirational to see some middle-aged woman with a cane just standing there quietly crying to herself because she hurts so much and there's a fucking two-inch curb in her way that she can't get over. Somehow I doubt the Chariots of Fire theme would be playing in the background over that one.
That sign seems completely pointless and potentially confusing to me, making it the worst sort of boondoggle; but what is making me really mad right now is the bit about your subway station having no elevator and only an up escalator. Because, hey anyone can go down stairs, right? ><
Yes, unless you're in a fucking wheelchair, obviously; but last summer when things were acting up again I had to train Karl on how to separate the clothes and put a wash on (with step-by-step guidance, of course; he's really smart but also he was only seven) because there was absolutely no way for me to get down the basement steps to the laundry. I could just manage the steps to the upstairs, and the outside steps, because I had my cane in one hand and the railing in the other, and if I went slowly and carefully it was still agony but at least it was physically possible. The basement steps didn't have any railings for the top half and without one there, it was absolutely, literally impossible for me to get down. I simply couldn't lower either of my feet that far without having something on both sides to support me, and leaning against the wall wasn't enough.
So, Sabs's subway station, fuck you with your assumption of "everyone can go down." These designers really, really need to spend a day (or better yet, a week) trying to navigate the system in a wheelchair before they decide that an up escalator is enough. Assholes.
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Date: 2013-05-26 07:22 pm (UTC)They're supposed to be putting an elevator in soon, but who knows when that'll happen.
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Date: 2013-05-27 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-27 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-27 10:46 am (UTC)GEE I SURE HOPE NOBODY NEEDS AN ELEVATOR THERE FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS oh no wait they do. ><
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Date: 2013-05-27 10:42 am (UTC)Meanwhile, hmm, maybe some kind of petition? They could put those motorized ramps in. You know, like the ones they have for shopping carts in certain huge stores.
Except of course you aren't allowed ON the motorized ramp with your shopping cart so that probably wouldn't work either. Dammit.
Yeah, probably an elevator would be the best but that thing is gonna get awfully choked up at rush hour. Maybe a letter to the transit authority (cc'd to the mayor's office like it would do any good) signed by the housing associations of each of the various appropriate apartment blocks or whatever. Plus a petitions left in the lobbies of each, and at the station itself.
That's a pretty serious disconnect from reality. In the States I believe one could enforce the installation of an elevator via the Americans with Disabilities Act, but I'm not sure Canada or Ontario has something similar yet. We probably do, but it's probably completely toothless and would need to go before the Supreme Court to get enforced. And who has that much energy?
Hah, maybe try the petition/letter and if that doesn't work, take a class-action lawsuit against the TTA for having stations that aren't all fully accessible. Pretty sure all public buildings/services are supposed to be, y'know, accessible. It might light a fire under their butts if nothing else.
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Date: 2013-05-27 12:44 pm (UTC)Probably not at my station. It doesn't get insane traffic at rush hour.
That's a pretty serious disconnect from reality. In the States I believe one could enforce the installation of an elevator via the Americans with Disabilities Act, but I'm not sure Canada or Ontario has something similar yet. We probably do, but it's probably completely toothless and would need to go before the Supreme Court to get enforced. And who has that much energy?
We have the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, but it's pretty toothless compared to the ADA. One of the interesting things I heard over the years was that the US's constant warmongering meant a higher number of (relatively young and active) people with disabilities, and thus a better commitment to access for everyone. Go figure.
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Date: 2013-05-27 01:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-27 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-27 08:42 pm (UTC)To be fair to the organization, it is working to make the entire system accessible but it gets bugger all in the way of funding from provincial or federal government so change happens very slowly.
The first accessible station was built in '96.
AODA, implemented in 2005, made it mandatory to make the system accessible. The plan was to have them done by 2020 but budget cuts (Hello Right Wing Bastards) have delayed that to 2025.
All buses in service are now accessible.
Current Streetcars aren't. Their replacements will be.
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Date: 2013-05-26 05:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-26 06:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-26 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-26 06:42 am (UTC)But the thing is that access needs to be for all sorts of people in all sorts of chairs, and some are self-propelled and some aren't.
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Date: 2013-05-26 01:26 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-05-27 01:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-27 12:46 pm (UTC)I saw a cool thing at a restaurant that had recently reno'd. Long corridor of washrooms, no gender, wheelchair accessible, and all private. Solved all of the problems, took pretty much the same amount of space.
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Date: 2013-05-26 04:24 pm (UTC)They might not be talking to me for awhile.
By the way - http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/how-torontos-totally-deranged-mayor-stayed-in-office/
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Date: 2013-05-26 07:13 pm (UTC)Sorry about your friends, but if I have to know about Goatse, so does the rest of the world.
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Date: 2013-05-27 06:15 pm (UTC)When I stopped taking anonymous comments, he signed up for LJ under the name laughsatnerds and goatse was his official picture.
Really wish I could wash my brain.
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Date: 2013-05-27 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-05-26 07:32 pm (UTC)This is making me laugh so much but it's also disturbing me at the same time because DNW FOREVER.
I think the new sign looks pointless, I wouldn't have immediately known wtf it was without reading your post. The old sign is used in different places across the world and is very clear so I think maybe it would have been easier to use in a city like NYC where there are so many people from across the world, as well as tourists. They probably should have used the money to improve accessibility in places across the city than on this.
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Date: 2013-05-26 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2013-05-27 12:44 pm (UTC)