[Education and Welfare] Fw: [Missouri-l] {Disarmed}SupportAccessible Swimming Pools!

[Anne Murphy]

You go girl!
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "DeAnna Noriega" <quieth2o at ktis.net>
To: "'Education and Welfare'" <ew at moblind.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 11:08 AM
Subject: Re: [Education and Welfare] Fw: [Missouri-l] 
{Disarmed}SupportAccessible Swimming Pools!


> David, I disagree with your assessment of this issue because if the
> government hadn't put a priority on accessibility such as curb cuts, we
> would not have made the progress we have toward universal design of public
> spaces. Small businesses wouldn't make any effort to address the needs of
> customers with disabilities because they wouldn't see the need. They
> wouldn't see the need because people with disabilities would remain locked
> out of participation in society. A ramped entry in to a pool may not seem
> important to you or I because we can walk and  move freely up and down 
> steps
> and ladders. Swimming however is one of the ways people with limited
> mobility can exercise and I can even see this as a positive thing for our
> aging population to get access to fitness and family fun. Just as curb 
> cuts
> have proven useful to people with rolling luggage and baby carriages or
> strollers, a way to readily enter a pool might prove a safety measure for
> both young and old. If government hadn't made a priority of braille 
> signage,
> we would still be tying strings to our hotel room doors, having to push
> several buttons in an elevator to learn the layout and get to the floor we
> need because the buttons were unmarked. To expect small businesses to come
> up with solutions when they don't even grasp the need is just a bit too
> trusting of good will that wouldn't be there. Many of my friends who use
> wheelchairs have to enter restaurants through back alleys, can't visit 
> shops
> and stores that have aisles too narrow for them to safely maneuver. Can't
> just spontaneously meet friends for a movie or meal because there may be
> obstacles or barriers preventing their getting where they need to go. I
> walked down fifteen flights of stairs in a high rise hotel when a fire 
> alarm
> went off having to leave a friend behind because the only provisions for 
> his
> evacuation were to remain in place to await a fireman to come for him with
> wet towels along the bottom of his hotel room door to keep out smoke. 
> Unless
> you have lived with this kind of limitation, you have no way of
> understanding how narrow an access to the world we take for granted is for
> the  mobility impaired. Yet they too pay taxes and would spend their money
> in those establishments that until now haven't made their access possible.
> Until universal design becomes they way buildings and facilities are
> designed from the very beginning, we will have to depend on government
> intervention to see that they are prioritized.
>
>
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