Discrimination of disability in the public transport system
By Anna Blinks, Waverley Christian College
This world is not meant for me. Or rather, our society is not designed for people like me.
I have several physical disabilities including arthrogryposis, scoliosis, lordosis, restrictive lung disease, my full medical diagnosis is over 19 separate conditions long, and some of those are undiagnosed. Though I can stand and talk for a few minutes, to go anywhere I need my mobility scooter, it is my legs.
Before I had it, I was constantly stagnant. Unable to go anywhere that would require walking more than 100 meters. Now, I use it at school, and whenever I go out. But simply traversing the city on my own is still nearly impossible, because the public transport system is incredibly inaccessible, something that is detrimental to the millions of disabled people that this system excludes.
Take for example trams: the way of the future, new, exiting, more environmentally friendly than ever before. Yet, amongst all this positivity, an audit conducted on Victorian Trams, found that only 15% of all tram services were fully accessible. 15%. For the way of the future, supposed to be for everyone, this is appalling.
When I have tried to use busses, my few successes are miniscule to the amount of times that the ramp was broken, the hook for the ramp was broken, or the buss simply kept driving as I waited at the stop. At the airport traveling to see family, a bus driver insisted their bus was full and I would have to wait for another one. He only relented once he saw that my mum had already loaded our luggage onboard. When he finally let us on, wouldn't you know it, that bus was completely empty.
So busses are out of the question. What about trains? Well, in order to get the ramp for the train, needed to get over the gap, I have to travel to the very end of the long and winding platform (sometimes over 700m long, with no light and no shelter). I have to wait on my own however long 'til the train finally arrives, reach very unsafely over that gap we're supposed to be careful of, desperately tap on the train driver’s door so he notices me, wait for him to get out, and only then get the ramp out. Something that takes everyone else, 10 seconds. It is blatantly obvious that public transport in Victoria is far below the line of adequate. But surely there must be something, right?
Well, there is. There has been an attempt by the state government to make up for this lack of adequate public transport. But this so called 'solution' is still impractical and works to trap us in the cycle of poverty. It is the Multi Purpose Taxi Program. It's a card you get - I have one - and what you do is after you take a taxi you swipe it and it means you get 50% off the total fare.
That doesn’t sound so bad. But let's actually look at the costs. With a yearly Myki Concession card, regular public transport into the city typically costs around $12 for a round trip, even less when you take advantage of the free tram zone in the inner city. But the online 13Cabs Taxi cost estimator, taking into account that 50% discount, estimated the round trip cost of going into the city, as between $74-$107. Almost 8 times more expensive.
People with a disability make up nearly 40% of those in poverty - as found by the 2018 Government Poverty Report - how can they be expected to pay 8x for a basic necessity every single day, compared to if we could just use public transport? Well, we can't. Only less than half of people with a disability aged 15-64, are employed. This insistence on an unreasonably expensive method of transport, traps us in a cycle of poverty. Unable to pay enough to be able to go out and work. Where everyone else can go and work and possibly break out of poverty, we are literally, physically, unable to do so.
But this is just the beginning. I could talk about agency. That by making it so that people with disabilities are unable to use public transport, it is much more difficult for them to enter society. But the even bigger issue is that all this adds up to the macro effect of disabled people being pushed out of sight out of mind. If people in wheelchairs cannot go out as much, we do not have to see them as much. If people with confronting differences are unable to leave the house, then we become forgotten. Unseen. Unheard.
Why should we make our buildings, our schools, our footpaths accessible? There's hardly any of them anyway. In the words of Dylan Alcott, 2022 Australian of the Year, Paralympic Tennis champion and wheelchair user, "We deserve the same opportunities as absolutely everybody else. To get out there and live the lives we want to live". If we are trapped at home because in order to leave, we need to give a minimum of 24hours notice to a cab company, then we are essentially segregated from the rest of society. The message is clear: 'You are less than'. 'You people do not fit in with our new and exciting society'. 'Stay hidden behind car doors, we do not want to deal with you and your problems'. It is the definition of discrimination.
What do we do- what can we do? The same as with any issue pushed into the backburner by politicians. We contact and lobby our local members. But, if that is too much, I simply ask that the next time you use public transport, you take a moment to look at what you would do if you were in a wheelchair. Take note of when there is a step onto a platform. The more people aware of this issue, the more pressure on governments to finally take action.
To conclude, and paraphrase Shakespeare "do we not have senses, affections, passions; are we not fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons... healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer? If you prick us do we not bleed?". We are human. Just the same as you. But the current public transport system, does not seem to agree.