Invisible Disabilities and Public Transport Accessibility

Transcription:

Bill 0:00
Hey there guys, it’s Bill from recoveryafterstroke.com. I’m just in the car, wanting to go to an appointment and I thought I would make a little video about an interesting experience I had. Recently I was talking to somebody from the Department of Transport in Melbourne, Australia. Melbourne is a city that often wins the most livable city in the world title or competition.

Bill 0:23
I’m not sure if it’s an actual proper competition, but we seem to win that and one of the reasons why we win that is because our city is very accessible in that if you’re in a wheelchair, you can get around onto public transport and off of public transport very easily, whether you’re in a pushing wheelchair on electric wheelchair.

Bill 0:44
And the conversation came up because this person that I met from the the Transport Authority or the Department of Transport, was telling me about how they’re doing a lot of work to make the brand new train station that being built, there’s about five that are going in in Melbourne, very accessible for people to get into and easy for them to use when they are not able bodied.

Bill 1:11
So our conversation went for a while and it was really great. And it’s great to hear that there’s so many caring people that are really don’t have that job to do that to make public transport accessible. And one of the questions that I asked was, you guys are making it accessible for people in wheelchairs and that’s great.

Bill 1:32
What are you doing for people who are experiencing difficulty using the public transport system because they are sensitive to light after stroke, or they are sensitive to noise and sound after stroke or they are sensitive to crowds after stroke. And that came as a surprise because there’s an abled bodied person. Of course, he doesn’t understand the difficulties that stroke survivors and people with neurological conditions experience and suffer after they come out of hospital or after an episode of either a brain hemorrhage or an ischemic stroke.

Bill 2:07
So I’m wondering, what is it that you are challenged with after stroke when it comes to public transport in the area of the world that you live in. For me, it was some lighting made it really difficult for me and made it really hard for me to be in that space and then combine the lighting with the crowds and combine the lighting and crowds with the sounds.

Bill 2:39
It was over stimulating my brian and it was making it really painful for me to be in that environment. So I avoided it for the longest time. Now I wonder if there’s a conversation that we can create about how we can go about making public transport better for people who are suffering those types of neurological conditions.

Bill 3:00
Which is something that the regular person can’t see because, you know, we look normal. So I remember that. In Melbourne, there is some shopping malls or shopping centers that make it possible for people on the autistic spectrum to go shopping where they reduce the sound of the music playing overhead, and they decrease or dim the lighting to make it easier for people on autistic spectrum to go into those malls or shopping centers with their carers or their family members.

Bill 3:32
So it’s like one hour a day or one hour a week where that’s possible. So I wonder what your ideas are about how to make public transport even more accessible, and what the challenges are that you suffer or you experience that would stop you from going to public transport. I know for me, it was definitely the lighting.

Bill 3:54
It was definitely the sound at the beginning and it was definitely my inability to use a seat which was dedicated for the disabled community because I didn’t look disabled, even though I couldn’t feel my entire left side and I had a balance problem. I couldn’t actually, I didn’t feel comfortable going up to somebody that was sitting there and saying, hey, I need that safe more than you do.

Bill 4:21
So, Bill from recoveryafterstroke.com thanks for listening and watching and if you have any comments, please leave them below. And I am going to take them to a meeting with this person at the Public Transport Department in Melbourne, Australia. And who knows that conversation might begin a world wide conversation about somehow making public transport even more accessible for people who are struggling from neurological conditions that you can’t see.