Leading campaigners who successfully lobbied to make Crossrail stepfree, have released seven key demands to improve transport for the mobility-impaired.
Transport for All, a London mobility charity, made the demands of government following its success on Crossrail, which saw two years of campaigning rewarded when transport minister Baroness Kramer pledged that all stations on the line would be step-free on opening.
The charity’s next big asks include:
1) Double the funding to make rail stations accessible: Only one in five stations in the UK have stepfree access. The Government’s Access for All scheme funds station access - but too few stations, too slowly.
2) Introduce mandatory disability equality training for bus drivers: The EU introduced new rights in 2013 for disabled bus passengers, including introducing disability equality training for drivers. But the UK has made full use of exemptions, so we still do not have the same right to ride as disabled passengers do in elsewhere in Europe.
3) Audio-visual information on every bus: In London, we have had talking buses for years. Time the rest of the UK caught up.
4) Protect staffing levels at rail stations: Disabled and older people depend on visible, available transport staff for advice and assistance. The Government needs to ensure that when train services are franchised, staffing levels are protected so that disabled and older people can travel with confidence.
5) End taxi discrimination: Implement section 165 of the Equality Act Equal access to taxis – unenforceable for fifteen years. The Government must implement section 165 of the Equalities Act, and make it illegal for taxi and minicab drivers to charge extra for wheelchair users.
6) Back our Right to Ride: Wheelchair priority on buses Doug Paulley’s legal battle to be able to use his local buses shone a light on how, over twenty years after disabled people locked themselves to buses to win a wheelchair space, disabled people face daily discrimination on the bus. We want wheelchair priority in the wheelchair bay protected by law.
7) Take a trip with disabled and older transport users: There is no substitute for direct experience. We are calling on all candidates to commit to making a journey with a disabled or older person – or better still, a group – to see first-hand the barriers that we encounter every day.
Director of Transport for All, Faryal Velmi, said: 'I think we still have a long way to go. We have had sympathetic ears but not the kind of joined-up thinking, or resources and political will that we need. On a national picture its two steps forward one step back.
'It's essential the next government and the Department for Transport and its ministers develop proper joined-up plans and provide ringfenced funding to tackle these issues. Its almost unimaginable that despite being one of the wealthiest countries in the world we don't have an accessible transport system, but it is just not the case at the moment.'
The news comes after concerns have been raised that government regulations on mobility access to buses still fall short of what many wheelchair users need.
Under the Public Service Vehicle Accessibility Regulations 2000 (PSVAR) all full size single deck buses over 7.5 tonnes should be fully accessible from 1 January 2016, and all double deck buses from 1 January 2017. All buses coaches must be accessible by 1 January 2020.
However the UK’s largest coach operator admitted to the Disability News Service that many wheelchair-users are still not able to travel on its vehicles, despite millions being spent on a ‘fully accessible’ fleet. The system used by National Express to ensure wheelchairs are securely fastened in place, known as the ‘magic seat’, is not compatible with many popular models.
A National Express spokesman told Disability News Service said: ‘There are hundreds of different wheelchair designs available on the UK market and some models will not fit in our vehicles. However, we have taken every measure possible to make sure as many customers with accessibility requirements as possible can travel with us.’
The spokesman could not say what proportion of wheelchairs were compatible with its Magic Seats, or how many disabled customers it was turning away.
However he added: ‘We are absolutely committed to customers with accessibility needs and with 97% of our fleet already wheelchair accessible, we have striven to be well ahead of the requirements set out in the PSVAR, which oblige all UK coaches to be wheelchair accessible by 2020. We are pleased that thanks in part to the measures taken, we have seen the number of journeys taken by wheelchair-users increase by 36% this year.’
