Rolling Traveler

I went out for a couple of beers with my good friend Alan tonight, and I thought I’d do a little counting to illustrate what going out for an evening in Europe can mean with a wheelchair in tow. I even brought a tape measure. Alan and I are both living and working as ESL teachers in Dusseldorf, the state capital of Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, and we chose to go out in his neighborhood, Bilk, to a bar called Piranha. I went by public transport, unaccompanied, in my Ti Lite TX, an ultra-light manual chair.

Number of steps that I have to ride down at my front door: 2
If there were 3 steps, I’d need help getting out of the building, but since there’s only two, I can do a wheelie and ride down. Most people get a little freaked out the first time they see me do that, but I can’t blame them, given how loudly I tend to hit the ground at the bottom. It took me a long time to learn how to do this: I had a good teacher, but my co-ordination and high center of gravity worked against me.

Number of kids that pointed at me on the way from my house to the tram stop: 3
There were three kids outside the Greek restaurant along the way to the light rail stop, and they pointed at me as I went past, one of them loudly exclaiming “He’s moving with his hands!”

Tram number: 709

Distance between the sidewalk and the floor of the tram: ~2½ inches (6.35 cm)

Number of people who asked if I needed help getting on the tram: 2

Distance between the floor of the tram and the road at destination: ~6 inches (15.24 cm)
My method for getting off a tram with that much of a gap between it and the road is to tilt the chair back into a slight wheelie and drop. The chair hits the road hard, and the jolt is painful for my lower back, and, if I don’t sit just right, for other more intimate parts of my anatomy. It also gets a shocked reaction from anyone who’s never seen a wheelchair user do a drop like that before. Again, it was something I had to learn, but it’s also something I really shouldn’t do as often as I do. I’m sure it’s not good for the chair, and I’m pretty certain my doctor would object. On the other hand, how else can I get off the tram when this is considered an accessible stop?

Number of beers I had: 2
I was drinking Franziskaner Hefeweizen, one of my favorite beers. It’s a pint beer, and on the strong side, so I don’t have more than two or three. I would probably have had three if not for the next few stats.

Height of the step into the bar: ~6 inches (15.24 cm)
As it was probably the last good day of the year, we were sitting outside, so when I needed to pee, I had to go inside. It’s an old German building, and the law isn’t as strict over here, so it still has a high step. To get in, I needed Alan to help.

Number of people I had to ask twice to move on the way to the restroom: 3

Number of people who were over-apologetic about not having heard me the first time I asked:3

Width of the doorway into the restroom: 22 inches (55.88 cm)

Width of my wheelchair: 22 inches (55.88 cm)
Yes, I did scrape the paint off on my way in.

The bill for 4 pints: €11.60 ($16.42)

The obstacles on the way home: 4
In order: getting back on the tram, getting off the tram at the other end, broken glass along the way, and those two front steps into the building that I’ll have converted to a ramp when I save the money.

It was a good night out: I needed to unwind after the busy end of the week. The analysis serves as a good example of how many little obstacles a wheelchair user can encounter. Some wheelchair users can overcome them alone, some need help, some could be really stuck. However, the light rail and the bar in question both list themselves as wheelchair accessible. That’s why we wheelchair users need someone’s description of a city or service, so we can get a real picture of what we might encounter, not just a term that is accurate in the letter of the law.

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