April 14, 2005

Accessibility work day to ease downtown hazards

Pat Olds is one of many village residents who must navigate downtown Yellow Springs in a wheelchair. Behind her is Byron Dann of the Accessibility Committee.

By Diane Chiddister

A walking person in downtown Yellow Springs probably won’t notice the many sections of uneven sidewalk, or the small steps leading up to most downtown shops. A seeing person might not think twice about overhanging branches, and instead will instinctively step out of the way.

But to a wheelchair-bound person or one with poor eyesight, these features mean that navigating downtown Yellow Springs can be dangerous. And these villagers often wish that their town was more sensitive to the needs of handicapped people.

“Yellow Springs has not been very friendly to wheelchair people. It has not been a big priority,” said Pat Olds of the Accessibility Committee last week. “I don’t know why not. We have lots of older people. Yellow Springs is getting older.”

This weekend the Accessibility Committee, Human Relations Commission and Unitarian Universalist Fellowship will sponsor a volunteer work event aimed at fixing some of downtown’s hazards. The event takes place Saturday, April 16, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and volunteers should meet at 9:45 at the John Bryan Center. All interested persons are encouraged to take part. The event is in conjunction with the Environmental Commission’s Litter Clean-up event.

Volunteers will fan out around downtown to address three specific hazards, according to Assistant Village Planner Ed Amrhein, who will provide necessary tools as well as experienced leaders for each group. Groups will grind down sidewalks in places where they are uneven, and will also trim bushes and trees that are obstructing sidewalks. They may also use sand to raise bricks on an uneven section of the walkway that leads from Xenia Avenue to the Yellow Springs News.

“There’s a lot we can do better and can do better without spending enormous sums of money,” said Amrhein in an interview this week.

Amrhein got a wake-up call about the difficulties handicapped people face in downtown Yellow Springs soon after he began his job almost a year ago, he said. He received a “heartfelt” letter from an out-of-town wheelchair-bound visitor who wrote to express her frustration with her recent visit, during which she had to wait outside many local stores while her friends shopped inside.

“Everything she thought she knew about Yellow Springs had led her not to expect” that she would have such difficulties here, Amrhein said.

But the woman’s frustrations came as no surprise to Pat Olds, a longtime village resident who has been wheelchair bound for the past two years. Every trip downtown must be carefully planned and carefully navigated, Olds said.

The steps that lead up to most downtown shops make certain kinds of shopping impossible, such as buying the flowers she loves, said Olds, who can do her banking by car in the US Bank drivethrough but could never get up the bank’s steps. Shopping for food at Tom’s Market can be hazardous on a wet day, when her wheelchair might slide backward as she makes her way up the store’s front-door ramp, and it’s impossible on any day if she’s by herself, since she can’t open the door and push her wheelchair at the same time, she said.

Most frustrating, she said, is the difficulty navigating her way to and around the Yellow Springs Senior Center. A ramp in front of the former Organic Grocery, which should provide access to the center’s back door from Xenia Avenue, is very dangerous, too steep and narrow and without siderails, she said. And visitors need to climb two steps to enter the center’s front room, which makes it out of reach for Olds.

When a wheelchair-bound person approaches the center from the rear, the ramp is too steep, Olds said, and there isn’t enough room around the Senior Center’s automatic door to feel safe entering.

According to Senior Center Director Rodney Bean, addressing the accessibility issues is a “multiyear” project, and the center is doing its best to work on it.

But in the meantime, wheelchair-bound villagers must face frustration and possibly danger when they attempt to come downtown.

“You don’t see many wheelchairs around town because people can’t get around,” said Accessibility Committee member Byron Dann. “If you do some of this work, more people would come.”

Olds gives high marks to downtown businesses that have made the necessary improvements, including the Winds Cafe and the Little Art Theatre.

Accessibility Committee members understand that many downtown store owners are just getting by, and although they may want to address accessibility needs, they may not have the money to do so, Dann said. They also know that Yellow Springs’ old buildings, while charming, create much of the problem.

But store owners may not realize that there are ways to address the problems that won’t break their banks, according to Ray Olds of the Accessibility Committee. While federal guidelines for accessibility identified in the Americans with Disabilities Act can be stringent, shop owners can make smaller changes that significantly ease handicapped persons’ frustrations, such as putting in automatic door openers or doorbells.

Fairly low-cost and lightweight portable ramps may also be purchased, according to Amrhein, who suggested that several stores could own one together. Amrhein suggested that Village government may also play a role in helping downtown store-owners with the challenge.

“We are pursuing questions and solutions” on specific accessibility issues, he said.

But as a first step, Saturday’s event will allow villagers to walk their talk of valuing diversity in their community. All volunteers are welcome, and they are encouraged to bring tools if they have any. Volunteers are also needed to supply sandwiches and snacks for the workers, and food should be dropped off at the Senior Center at 11 a.m. For more information, contact Joan Chappelle of the Human Relations Commission at 767-7056.