Interesting. Though it may not have started out that way, it’s certainly a nice goal to aim for now.
To everyone, thank you for the responses so far. I’m still thinking about 'em and reflecting. Please keep posting if you’d like.
English wasn’t technically my first language, but it’s my primary one now – I think and speak in it almost exclusively – so that’s not an excuse. The OP was just poorly thought-out and phrased, and for that I apologize. I was fascinated by the concept and typed it up in a rush, eager to hear what others had to say. There was no malice intended but I can certainly see how it could’ve been interpreted as insensitive.
ETA: Just to clarify a bit, it’s not just the ADA in and of itself I was curious about, but the momentum and culture-changing that must’ve been needed to convince a whole nation of people that disabled individuals were worth taking care of, but not only that, that they were were entitled to the same rights and services as anyone else.
Coming from a place where disabled individuals were generally left to their own devices, I never took these services for granted and so I was curious about their history and rationale. It just didn’t seem likely that one day somebody suddenly decided “You know what, it’s high time for us all to become good people and help out our physically challenged brethren! From today on, there will be ramps for all!” and I wanted to understand more of the thinking and arguments that must’ve been required back when the act was passed… or not? Was there debate about this at the time? Was it a contentious issue at all?
Anyway, seeing it from the perspective of a movement that followed women’s rights and civil rights makes a lot more sense (thank you, Lumpy and Jimmy). It’s not so much that the disabled were singled out as a group to benefit, but that they were just one of many inequities (women and people of color two others) that society finally got around to semi-equalizing.
When I lived in China, I noticed that few facilities were accessible to the disabled- there were unramped stairs, etc. everywhere. China actually has laws that hinder the ability for disabled people to enter university, on the principal that scarce university slots should go to people who are superior in every way. While there are now some measures being taken to improve the quality of life for the disabled, they have a long ways to go.
As a result, you rarely if ever saw handicapped people on the street. Orphanages were filled with kids that we’d consider only mildly disabled. Disabled people would be hard pressed to find work, and would probably spend their lives as a burden on their family. Even a limp could be enough to basically ruin your life.
It’s a pretty bad scene. Since we live in a relatively rich society, why shouldn’t we do this? In any case, it’s relatively easy to build these things in, and very hard to retrofit, so it makes sense to focus on building stuff accessible to begin with.
And since no one’s brought it up: the disabled pay taxes just like the rest of us. Why should they be denied the public services that they paid for, just like everyone else? (Libraries, public streets, busing, etc).
(Just out of curiosity: may I ask where you’re from, Reply?)
ETA: Hmm, now that you ask, I wonder if the tighter family structure there results in a broader societal delegation of responsibility to the families instead of the government.
Also, consider that the way the ADA was structured, the conversion happened over a period of years. For example, NEW buses purchased after 1990 had to be accessable, but the OLD buses could continue to run until they were put out of service in the ordinary course of business. Same for sidewalk cuts – when they came up for replacement, the new design had to be used – but for many years some sidewalks were step-ups, and others sloped. The New York City subway is not wholly or even mostly accessible, except for those stations which have been – wait for it – recently renovated. What appears to you to be a universal switch that called for a huge one-time outlay, is actually the end result of a 20 year conversion process that took advantage of natural renovation and replacement cycles. The marginal costs, as noted upthread, were actually insignificant in most cases.
My impression (which is not particularly well informed and is based on my experiences in southwest China) is that in China there is an extremely strong sense of responsibility towards the family, and a rather weak sense of responsibility towards strangers. So things like disability would be left to the family to deal with (and they would probably step up.) I’ve had it explained to me like the old family compounds- people would just sweep their garbage outside the doors and shut them, happy that the inside was clean. The state of the streets outside their doors wasn’t their concern.
In the west, while family is of course important, we have nowhere near as strong of a sense of responsibility. Independence is also such a big part of our culture. To be dependent on your family would be extremely uncomfortable for most adults. One of our big focuses on dealing with disability is building “independence”- indeed my Grandfather is in physical therapy right now, and I was struck by how culture-specific the push towards “independence” is. I also think we feel more of a baseline sense of responsibility towards strangers, probably at the expense of our sense of responsibility towards those close to us. While we may not be willing to move back home to take care of our parents, we are more willing to do stuff like build handicap ramps.
Another factor may be in the feeling that “there are so many people in China,” no idea how that might apply to Taiwan, I’ve come away with the feeling that people think economic progress is paramount, and the “extras” can come later. They recognize some people are going to get screwed, but feel that the good of the many comes before that. As long as most people are benefiting, it’s a good thing.
Fascinating observations, sven! I wonder if that’s generally true.
As an aside, I find it interesting that Taiwan has universal health care but very limited accessibility services – not that the two are necessarily closely related, but it’s a sign that people there believe in at least a modicum of care for strangers.
I should also note that the general public was usually very accommodating to my disabled grandma, even though they were in no way required to be by law. They treated her with great respect and kindness, and as I mentioned upthread, went to great lengths to serve her. But that too may be cultural and related to her elderly age;I wonder if it’d be different for a disabled 30-year-old man, for example.
So you think things there would improve once the country as a whole raised its standard of living? That’d make sense to me.
A (so-far) unanswered question: What’s the situation like in other developed countries? How is disabled living in, say, Sweden or the rest of Europe?
That’s the official answer. The practical response is American society has a very long history of equality. You might want to read up on the Declaration of Independence, for starters.
BTW, ADA is scheduled for a major expansion within the next year. The Department of Justice (DOJ) issued in late July a Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) to expand the concept of public accommodation as it applies to web accessibility for all state and local government web sites, and commercial and private web sites in the US. (The SDMB would be exempt.) At the same time there is an addition ANPRM to require commercial move theatres to caption or offer other means of accommodation to movies at least 50 percent of the time, expand accessibility to emergency 911 systems, and require equipment and furniture in public and commercial areas to be accessible as well.
Is the different really not obvious? Not having an attendant is not a barrier to service. Having a large physical obstacle in the way is.
The point is not to cater to disabled people in particular or make their life easier in general.
The specific mandate is to make public services reasonably accessible to the entire public. This doesn’t just cater to disabled people. The mandate also involves making services more accessible to everyone through things like the internet, making forms available at the library and the post office, etc.
You might make an argument against laws involving private establishments, but public services really do need to be available to the entire public. Unless that guy in the wheelchair’s taxes are somehow subordinate to yours…
The “official” answer was provided earlier, but thanks for posting that.
As for the practical response, I hope you’re joking. Long facade of equality, more like, or else “self-evident” must’ve had a very long line of invisible asterisks after it. There is nothing remotely equal about the historic America which built itself on the backs of slaves working conquered land. Equality was an ideal that didn’t really start to get realized until the recent rights movements, and even now is still a work in progress.
One factor your assumptions ignore is that much of the expense to “cater to the needs of the disabled” is expensive because these buildings are retrofitting or adding features. It’s probably much less expensive to design the buildings with these accessibility features from the ground up.
For example, adding a ramp to a building with steps is a pain. But there’s no particular reason a building has to have steps instead of a ramp in the first place. It can’t be much more expensive to build a ramp than to build a staircase. If we just made ramps everyone could use our buildings. So in the future the cost of the ADA will not be such a big deal.
The newer curb cuts by where I live have a surface with big studs on it–the same as are on the edges of train platforms. Could this be in order to mitigate these issues?
Fact is, most people wind up disabled for part of their life. Even if you never break a leg, or are otherwise disabled temporarily in youth, eventually you are either dead or old. Society doesn’t care about dead people, but old people need ramps and large toilet stalls too. So really, pretty much everybody winds up needing them at some point.
You might as well be asking about roads or libraries. Why does society subsidize these things? Because everybody needs them. Same with handicap accessibility stuff.
bumps or ridges make it so that it can’t be cleared of snow to become clean dry pavement. the snow packs hard, like a bobsled run, or may turn to an incline of ice; both hazardous to all on foot.
blind walking with canes look for the sharp curb decline to know where to stop and not walk into traffic.
curb cuts should not be at corners or cross walks but at least 3 feet away.