As Clara Bailon pushed over sidewalk cracks outside her home in the Bronx, she told stories about the old days.
She remembered being left on the curb on her way to the beach with friends by a bus with a broken lift in the 1980s. She recalled quitting her job at a bank in lower Manhattan after graduating from college because glitches in the transit system made it difficult to show up on time. She talked about harassment and indifference from transit workers and commuters. She remembered being tripped over on the subway stairs during rush hour.
“You have to learn to be a little assertive having a disability,” Bailon said about her experience with Access-A-Ride and the subway and bus systems.
Bailon has spent decades asserting herself within a complex transit system that expands its accessible options gradually but incompletely. She praises the “good Samaritans” who have stepped in where the system falls short, lifting her wheelchair over gaps between subways and platforms where wheels sometimes stall, and offering directions to accessible subway stops that comprise less than one-fifth of the subway system.
Published on Transportation Access. Click here to read the article.
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