Barrier Free Travels

Although I'm technically on holiday, I just can't resist blogging. It's somewhat addictive; plus I've received quite a lot of mail asking me to post my impressions about access in Ireland.

And to be honest, it's hard for me to go anywhere and not take note of the access. Such was the case when we landed at Belfast City Airport and noticed accessible taxi cabs at the taxi queue. And I have to say that I'd recommend that airport as an entry point, as it's easy to navigate and nicely accessible. Plus the employees were quite punctual at providing assistance - wheelers weren't left waiting (and waiting) on planes to disembark.

As far as physical access in the cities goes, well it's pretty typical of Europe - meaning that curb cuts are not ubiquitous and steps up to shops are found - but with a little planning it's possible to navigate. I'm in Westport today and certainly the city has a few hills, so it wouldn't be the best choice for wheelchair-users; however Belfast was pretty level and parts of it made for a nice walk. In fact, walking in Belfast is much easier than driving.

As far as the attractions go, a good lot of them feature accessible parking and ramped entrances, although the accessible entrance may not always be in the front, especially at historic attractions.

Contemporary attractions are a mixed bag. At Bushmills Distillery there are many steps and steep inclines on the tour, so it's really not doable for wheelers or even slow walkers. But Belleek Pottery offers great access. They have accessible parking near the entrance, a barrier-free pathway to the visitors center and level access throughout the factory tour. And if you can't manage distances, they have a free loaner wheelchair on hand. I highly recommend the tour as it allows you to get up close and personal (and even talk to) the craftsmen.

So if Ireland is on your wish list, I encourage you to pursue it. Like many other destinations these days, it's most certainly very doable.

Mark McClenaghan had a very bad day last week, when he tried to board a Scotrail sleeper in Aberdeen with his service dog, Friday. Apparently Friday was barred from boarding because he might have "fleas, germs or mites."

So Mark had to find another way to get back to Edinburgh, and in the end he had to fork over an additional £95 for a taxi. Ouch!

So what went wrong? Well according to Scotrail, they welcome service animals on all their trains and they have clear guidelines for their staff about this policy.

Apparently the Scotrail employee that barred Mark from the rail car didn't see those guidelines. She claimed that if she let Friday aboard then they would have to deep clean the train afterwards.

And when Mark spoke to her supervisor, he backed up his employee. After all, he trained her.

In the end Mark did everything he could, but they still wouldn't budge.

Scotrail is looking into the matter, so hopefully Mark will be compensated. Personally I put the blame on the supervisor. He's in charge of training his employees and for making them familiar with all Scotrail regulations. It's quite obvious that he was unfamiliar with the access laws and issues, and apparently he passed along that ignorance to at least one of his employees.

So it just goes to prove that you can have the best access laws in the world, but if you don't train employees and educate them about those laws, access goes to Hell in a hand basket rather quickly.

Hopefully Scotrail will move just as quickly to rectify their training problem at the Aberdeen station.

Well, we're off to Ireland tomorrow. Technically this is a vacation, however no doubt I'll run across some accessible finds along the way. And even though I'm on holiday I'll still blog here and there. After all, I love to blog; and I don't want to miss out on doing something I love when I'm on vacation.

Ireland is really making great strides in access, but to be honest I'm just looking forward to the holiday. And part of looking forward to it was doing almost zero planning. After all, I spend a lot of time planning my editorial research trips so I didn't want to have to do that for a vacation too. I just bought the plane ticket and then called my friend Ann at Undiscovered Britain and told her to book a rental car and find us some nice places (manor homes and castles) to stay. And she did it all.

Charles wants to visit Bushmills Distillery (he loves their whiskey) and I want to visit Belleek (I collect china tea sets, so guess what I'm buying there), but other than that we don't have any must-sees. I pretty much just gave Ann free reign.

So when people ask me what I'm going to do in Ireland I reply with a very intelligent, "I don't know." But I don't.

And playing it all by ear will be half the fun - and so very opposite of what we do on our editorial research trips. I'm really looking forward to it.

Oh, and no; I'm not flying Ryanair. For those of you new to my blog or my writing, do a search about Ryanair or the evil Michael O'Leary on my blog. Truth be told, after all I've said about his airline, I don't think Michael would let me aboard!! But then again, I wouldn't want to give hiim my money either!

There was an interesting article in the Jerusalem Post last week about the apparent lack of hotel accessibility in Israel.

Tourism officials believe this will be a watershed year for tourism in Israel - I'm not sure why, as travel to the Middle East isn't exactly at the top of my list right now, and I lived in Beirut in the early 80s - but hey, we'll go with the Tourism Ministry's prediction. And apparently Israel isn't ready for (what is believed to be) an influx of disabled (meaning older) visitors.

Why?

Well, it seems that Israel's' access laws are in the process of being updated and it doesn't seem likely that resolution is near. To be honest, after reading about the specifics of the problem, I'm thinking the time frame is going to be something along the lines of our own pokey "Access Board - cruise ship guidelines" time table fiasco.

Here's the scoop.

Currently the law covering accessibility comes from a 1995 building code, and it's pretty ambiguous. Unlike our own ADAAG, it doesn't really give specific standards for accessibility. And it only applies to properties built after 1995. The problem is, Israel has some pretty old properties; in fact at least two-thirds of Israel's properties were built before 1995.

So you can routinely encounter things like narrow doorways, steps and elevators not big enough to hold wheelchairs. And under the current law, these older properties aren't required to make any changes.

So that's the reason for the new law. Little is known about the proposed legislation except that it will treat pre and post 1995 hotels differently, and it has to be approved by a special construction and housing committee before it's implemented.

And as you may expect, there is some opposition. The hotel industry will undoubtedly weigh into the debate, as according to the Israel Hotels Association the demand for accessible rooms is low and many property owners have a hard time justifying the expense of access upgrades. Disabled advocates of course dispute this claim and hold that there is little demand because of the lack of accessibility.

In the end, it all adds up to lots of talking and lots of time before anything is approved. Some experts estimate it will take several years, but nobody really knows for sure.

So what's a traveler to do?

Well, if by chance your travels take you to Israel in the near future, look for a hotel built after 1995, and make sure to ask specific questions about accessibility.

And if you can postpone your trip until after the new law is implemented, even better.

After all, there are lots of places in the world that want your business, and have made accessibility modifications. Why not give them your tourism dollars?

A quick look at the UAL website this morning yielded some good news for a change. It appears they have changed their “excess baggage” policy, yet again, in regards to wheelchairs and other assistive devices.

When we last visited this issue, UAL had just instituted a $25 charge for a second bag. This policy was set to go into effect in May, but they posted it in advance to give folks some warning. And according to their FAQs on the UAL website, that $25 charge was also going to apply to assistive devices, beyond one wheelchair — things like a commode chair or a shower chair, UAL-to-Charge-for-Medical-Equipment. But that was over a month ago, an eternity in the airline business.

Today the UAL FAQs have been edited to read: “An extra wheelchair may be checked and not be part of your checked bag allowance (or assessed a fee) if it is strictly for mobility purposes or is required to make a living. Other medical assistive devices are also exempt from the service fee.”

So it appears we are back where we started, which in the end is a good thing. So, start packing those commode chairs!

Oh and for what it's worth, as expected people are carrying more and more stuff aboard UAL flights in order to avoid the extra charges. Last week we took four UAL flights, and in all cases the overhead bins were crammed full when only half of the passengers had boarded. Lot's of stuff had to be gate checked. So if anyone from UAL is reading this — your gate agents need to start enforcing the carry-on limits so everyone can have room for their stuff!!!