Pavements, curbs and gradients

This morning a colleague of mine who is visually impaired was hit by a motorbike as he went to get on the bus. The bus had stopped in the middle of the road, as where he lives in north Delhi there are very few bus shelters, and the motorcyclist was in a hurry and didn’t see him heading towards the bus. Fortunately my colleague is ok and wasn’t seriously hurt but it made me think again about how safe and easy it is to travel around Delhi as a disabled individual. Are you forced to make a choice between living independently and compromising your own safety each time you go outside?

There have been some brilliant recent innovations to transport in Delhi such as the metro system which has level entrances into the carriages, wheelchair accessible lifts at every stop and audio announcements. Because it was built so recently and with accessibility in mind, it is far superior, for example, to the tube network in London. In London only 121 out of a possible 380 destinations have wheelchair accessible lifts, preventing wheelchair users from being able to reach over half of the available destinations. But what do you do in Delhi if the metro is not an option or if your destination is only a short distance away or requires you to take a bus instead like my colleague?

When I was working on disability issues in the UK one of mine and my colleagues’ favourite topics was pavements. We would spend hours debating the merits of various pavement gradients, tactile paving, the arguments for and against shared pavements, parking on pavements, dropped curbs and pavement obstructions. It sounds geeky and it undoubtedly was, but there was also a very good reason for our obsession. Much of our campaigning work revolved around the availability of accessible transport and physical access to services in the UK. However, as many of the disabled individuals we worked with pointed out, if you can’t even reach your local bus stop or shop in the first place because the pavements are too narrow to accommodate a wheelchair or too uneven to navigate with a visual impairment, then your independence begins and ends at the front door to your home.

During my walk to and from my office in south Delhi to my home I walk on the road, as the pavement appears and disappears in places or is blocked off by motorcycles, fallen debris, temporary outdoor rickshaw workshops, food stands, stray dogs and gaping holes. On the rare occasions that the pavements are clear, they are raised about 10 inches off the ground with no dropped curbs. It would be impossible to safely navigate a wheelchair along them and difficult to go on the roads, as you are constantly having to dodge traffic coming in both directions at considerable speed.

Recently there has been a great deal of heated debate reported amongst disabled people’s organisations in India over a new draft of the Persons with Disabilities Act 1995. The new draft would bring it further in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Despite the tension it has caused, the desire to update the legislation to better protect the rights of disabled individuals in India is a very positive one in theory. However, 15 years after the first Persons with Disabilities Act was enforced in India, the pavements are evidence that legislation does not solve the problem unless it is followed through and implemented. This isn’t exclusive to India as in the UK the same is the case with the Disability Discrimination Act. It is a brilliant piece of legislation when it is taken seriously and implemented, but far too often it is ignored or misunderstood.

The organisation I am working for places great emphasis on the need to change peoples’ perceptions about disability. The bus driver that stopped the bus in the middle of the road, the motorcyclist that knocked over my colleague and the people blocking the pavements with various obstacles, they are all acting on the assumption that disabled individuals are not physically able to access the outdoor environment and therefore don’t need to be accounted for. What they don’t realise is that their attitudes and actions are the only thing disabling that person.