Checking up on Amtrak's (lack of) ADA compliance

shop deals on amazon
Shop deals on ebay
Advertise with us
Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
flitcraft said:
Amen, my friend. A few years back I broke an ankle badly, and ended up using a wheelchair for several months. I discovered that parts of the campus of my university--ostensibly fully accessible--were not accessible at all by someone in a wheelchair. And they didn't have an online map of the campus showing where accessible doors to each of the buildings were. I kept pestering the administration till they finally posted the map and changed several walkways to be more accessible. But I never would have noticed except for my personal experience of trying to navigate my way by wheelchair.
Click to expand...

When I was in college 2007 to 2011, the college I went to was in the middle of a major capitol project mainly installing ramps, elevators, new accessible paths on the hilly portion of campus, to make campus fully accessible. It was part of a settlement with the justice department after they had been sued for dragging their feet on not making the campus accessible. I went to a reading with an alumnus who had gone to the college in the '80s who used a wheelchair from a permanent disability who had to have the same dorm room all 4 years, because it was the only accessible dorm room at the time on the entire campus.
 
SubwayNut said:
When I was in college 2007 to 2011, the college I went to was in the middle of a major capitol project mainly installing ramps, elevators, new accessible paths on the hilly portion of campus, to make campus fully accessible. It was part of a settlement with the justice department after they had been sued for dragging their feet on not making the campus accessible. I went to a reading with an alumnus who had gone to the college in the '80s who used a wheelchair from a permanent disability who had to have the same dorm room all 4 years, because it was the only accessible dorm room at the time on the entire campus.
Click to expand...
My partner (who I met in college) has juvenile-onset rheumatoid arthritis, and I've always had problems with my feet, and we were trying to help out my frail grandmothers by the 1990s, so I've been highly alert to this stuff since college in the 1990s, though I was somewhat aware even in the 1980s.

It's one thing when places are trying; I know there's a *lot* to retrofit. It's something else when they're not trying. After this many years, I feel like I can tell the difference between (a) actively helpful, (b) trying but not competent, (c) negligent, and (d) malicious.

Amtrak is usually in category (b) these days, but was in category (c) prior to Boardman. NYC Subway is usually in category (d). Most administrators at my college were in category (c) but a few were in category (b) and some in category (a); I got to watch the internal politics a bit.
 
Any news on ADA? I tried to find information on how the Ardmore station construction is coming along but failed.
 
I noticed the new Burlington Vermont Amtrak platform for the Ethan Allen extension is low level only. I am kind of surprised, I was expecting it to at least have a partial mini-high platform. This may have been covered in the thread before but doesn't ADA require some kind of accesibilty on a new service like this? There may be an occasional freight move here but normal freight cars would be fine with a high level and an odd high and wide move would be ok with a standard removable foam extension to the platform that is in service on other mixed freight/passenger lines.
 
Last edited:
LOLL I can't believe there's no high platform there.

If anyone is interested, I discovered a few weeks ago that New London, CT (NLC) has an accessible platform with highs on both sides (requires bridge plates due to curve but it works), but the building is not accessible. There's an outside ramp on State Street, but the two doors between it and the inside are not powered.
 
daybeers said:
If anyone is interested, I discovered a few weeks ago that New London, CT (NLC) has an accessible platform with highs on both sides (requires bridge plates due to curve but it works), but the building is not accessible. There's an outside ramp on State Street, but the two doors between it and the inside are not powered.
Click to expand...
I find this lots of places.

I don't expect them to make the Kissimmee FL station house accessible, seeing as it's an historic building without room to maneuver inside. But I'm constantly annoyed that the adjacent city parking garage, just a few years old, has lots of handicapped spaces and an elevator but no powered door! I tried going out the vehicle exit, but then there's no curb ramp up to the pedestrian grade crossing. :rolleyes:
 
Just an alert that there's a new thread, at I'm in Alburquerque and a freelance writer., in which new member Otis (welcome, Otis!) tells us that Amtrak has ordered 80 audioloop sets to improve the oft-garbled and unintelligible communications in passenger cars. Excerpt:

"Since [2013], to the best of my knowledge, Amtrak has done little to accommodate the needs of hard of hearing travelers until this year when they placed an order for 80 some new 'train sets' that will feature hearing loops in all of the passenger cars. These loops allow hearing aid wearers whose devices have receivers called telecoils to wirelessly connect to the PA system to better hear announcements. I'm curious as to what comments members of this group would have re communication access on Amtrak trains and in stations. Are you aware of hearing loops and do you look for them when traveling?"

My own experience (I've worn hearing aids since childhood measles...the vaccine came along two years too late for me) is that, yes, I look for telecoils and similar technology. And I wonder if the new over-the-counter hearing aids recently authorized by the FDA, for the millions of people with mild to moderate loss, will have telecoils. Ideally, Amtrak and other carriers should serve everyone, hearing-impaired or not, by making clear announcements at moderate speed in unaccented English over functioning PA systems and by posting the same information on a visible screen. Yeah, a girl can dream.
 
Trollopian said:
Just an alert that there's a new thread, at I'm in Alburquerque and a freelance writer., in which new member Otis (welcome, Otis!) tells us that Amtrak has ordered 80 audioloop sets to improve the oft-garbled and unintelligible communications in passenger cars.
Click to expand...
And I belatedly noticed that Otis started a new and separate thread at Hearing Loss is a Disability. (Much of this thread focuses on physical access and mobility issues, which are certainly important, but hearing loss often gets subsumed in ADA discussions.) Thank you, Otis!
 

Latest posts

Back
Top