Improving how public transportation treats people with special needs

Now that my mom sees a neurologist in Taipei, Taiwan, she travels for her appointments from our hometown to the hospital by public transportation. The hospital is next to a metro station just one stop from Taipei Main Station, the city’s central railway hub. On paper, it’s a relatively easy trip that takes about an hour and a half each way. But for someone like my mom, who walks with a cane, every trip feels like a major task to plan for and conquer.

For starters, people walk fast in big cities, especially in public transportation systems. I’m a fast walker myself, so I understand why city dwellers try to get from points A to B as efficiently as possible. But it makes me anxious to imagine my mom on a platform, holding my dad’s hand on one side and her cane on the other, while passengers pour in and out of the train and spill from one escalator onto the next. If real life were a movie, this is where I would use a time-stopping scene, freezing the rest of the world until my parents get where they need to be.

Getting where they need to be is the second challenge. Transferring from one transportation system to another involves a good amount of walking. Where the older railway system meets the newer metro lines, the station stretches out and grows deep. My parents have to go up and down between underground levels, exit one gate and enter another, walk along long corridors, and carefully step onto an escalator if the elevator is far away.

I’m thankful that Taipei’s public transportation systems are relatively young, so the facilities are at least accessible, with ramps and elevators. But I can’t help wondering how we could make the journey easier for people like my parents.

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Borrowing a wheelchair still requires special services

Major stations like Taipei Main Station offer wheelchair borrowing, but it’s treated as a special service. A passenger in need has to go to an information desk and leave an ID card to borrow one. There is a desk on the ground floor and another in a corner of the B1 level. That somewhat defeats the purpose: The point is to have a safer way to leave the platform and head to the next one, yet the passenger must first make their way to a desk.

I read that if a passenger notifies the station in advance, staff can bring a wheelchair to the platform before the train arrives. We haven’t tried it yet, but it would be a great help if everything works as planned. Still, having to request a “special service” makes it hard to normalize daily life for people with mobility issues.

In big cities, it’s common to see people renting bikes at bike-sharing stations. Recently, I’ve even noticed umbrella-sharing kiosks as I walk in and out of Taipei’s metro. These everyday services are ordinary, convenient, and … normal. You don’t have to go to a special place to get them, make a special announcement, or rely on others to provide a special service.

In this context, “special” means “not easy.”

People with special needs would also like to live an ordinary life

I know my mom has special needs, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But perhaps one day, as with bike-sharing, it will be common to see wheelchair stations on platforms where passengers can borrow and return a wheelchair. It will be routine for station staff to move wheelchairs from platform to platform to rebalance the inventory. It will be ordinary for a passenger who needs a wheelchair to push a request button at a wheelchair station when none is available.

When borrowing a wheelchair is no longer a special service, going out won’t need to be a special occasion for someone like my mom. That will be a day when life for people with special needs is normalized; a day when the same space accommodates different paces of life; a day when public space is shared by people who move on their own and people who move with wheelchairs. That kind of normalization would mean a great deal to our community of rare disease patients and caregivers.

Note: Amyloidosis News Today is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of Amyloidosis News Today or its parent company, Bionews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to familial amyloid polyneuropathy.