Public access in Bengaluru: Mobility disabled

Access to safe, seamless, unobstructed walking is mobility in its very basic form, a democratic right so fundamental that every city should guarantee it to every citizen. But Bengaluru, billed as India’s most livable city has an access problem screaming out for attention, tellingly brought to the fore by lakhs of senior citizens, the weak and the disabled struggling to take that next step in fear.

Should flashy escalators be part of only malls and commercial spaces? Why should the elderly take so much pain climbing rusty, rickety stairs in railway stations as crowded as K R Puram, lugging along their heavy baggage? How do the wheelchair-bound enter banks, bus stops and other public spaces with no ramp in sight?

Station woes

Chugging into the hugely overstretched K R Puram Station, dozens of trains spill out thousands of passengers every day. But connecting the platforms is a lone bridge, accessed by stairs in disrepair. Without an escalator, passengers young and old, abled and disabled are forced to wriggle through the crowds, wondering why the virtual entrance to a hi-tech city should be treated so shabbily.

Read | ‘Why can’t public infrastructure be disabled-friendly?’

On Friday afternoon, a family of four from Rajahmundry, an elderly couple included, were caught in that daily struggle. Stumped by the rush and the stairs, they had to pause to rest after every five steps. “Even Rajahmundry station has escalators. We expected much better infrastructure here,” said Chidambaram, the elderly head of that family.

Barely a few yards from the station, the city’s pedestrian footpaths lay there to make their entry to the city as unwelcome as ever. Uneven, disjointed and anything but walkable. Vast stretches of the city’s footpaths have consistently scored poorly on walkability in street quality scores over the years.

Mobility challenges

Agile youngsters have lost lives walking. So, do senior citizens and the differently-abled stand a chance? Mahantesh G K, Founder and Managing Trustee of the Samarthanam Trust for the Blind agrees that most city roads and other public facilities are inaccessible, and pose huge mobility challenges.

But, he insists, the solutions have always been there. “Everything is clearly spelled out in the National Building Code. There are provisions to deny license to a building if the access parameters are not integrated,” he points out.

Ramps are a rarity in most public buildings. Seamless access for the disabled is not even considered while designing entry to parks and playgrounds, libraries and other civic amenity offices. “Simple things like announcing the floor inside a lift can help the visually impaired a lot.”

In buildings with ramps, many tend to be too steep for the wheelchair-bound to climb. “For partially blind people like me, it would be helpful to paint the steps in different colours. Often, if the floor and the last step are of the same colour, I slip,” notes Mahantesh.

Bus stops pose another access problem. “When buses line up one after another, visibility of the destination board becomes an issue for us. It would be great to have announcements at every bus stop. The BMTC App used to have a feature alerting us about the real-time bus location. Now even that has stopped working,” laments Chandru, a frequent bus commuter facing disability issues.