One of the biggest barriers to employment for the blind is transportation. Many communities in the U.S. Either have poor public transit or they have no public transit. There are some exceptions to this rule, and hopefully as people want to drive less, more and more communities will have public transportation that most people want to use.
In Corvallis, the city I live in, our public transit system is pretty good. From an accessibility standpoint especially, CTS is one of the better systems. All of the buses are wheel chair accessible, and the built-in GPS system speaks aloud all of the stops on the route. This feature makes my experience really great because I never worry about missing my stop. This feature also empowers the blind community because they can rely on themselves to get where they want to go. The Toronto Transit System has installed the GPS feature that announces all of the stops and the response has been really positive. Both sighted and non-sighted riders say that it really helps them get off at the right stop. This is just another example of how most improvements in accessibility help everyone, not just the disabled.
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What features do your public transit systems provide that really help you, and what if anything would you change to make the public transportation in your area more accessible?
Posts
Identification by Color, Not for Me
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by Donna J. Jodhan
When I had sufficient vision, I used to depend heavily on colors to help me
identify things. I could remember that when I was growing u...
4 days ago
I sometimes find the maps to be somewhat confusing. It would also be really cool if the buses were linked to a computer system that could tell you whether buses are running on time. I think there's an iPhone app for this but it only works in highly urbanized areas like San Francisco.
ReplyDeletehello,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Sagi Yudovitz and I am do research for a Jerusalem radio show about the blind. I'd be more than happy if you could aend me information on distribution of GPS systems that speek out loud. Unfortunatly, there is no such system in the public transportation in Israel.
Appreciate your assistance,
Sagi