Conference transit information fail

[codeman38]

Note to people who run conferences in general, and especially those which are directly related to disability: If people e-mail you asking for directions on how to get there via bus, and the conference center's site doesn't say anything in that regard? Don't just make stuff up. Please bother to actually do some research.

Yeah, I may be from another part of Georgia, sure, but even I know from past experience (when I was able to get a ride, that is) that MARTA buses absolutely do not go as far east as the Gwinnett Civic Center, despite what I was told by a conference organizer.


Of course, this would've been a lot easier to figure out the correct answer to if Gwinnett Transit's web site weren't a big heaping bag of accessibility fail. All the info is strictly in PDFs with no accessibility tagging whatsoever, and the system map distinguishes routes only by color... using only the colors that are most likely to be indistinguishable to a colorblind person (blue-purple, red-green-orange). And even the correct route map (#10, for the curious) doesn't clearly indicate whether the route actually goes to the civic center or just goes past it-- the center's shown on the map, but a good distance from the actual route, and it's not listed under "Points of Interest" at all.

In fact, the only way I found out that route 10 was the correct route was a random PDF I stumbled across, while searching information on transit routes to the Gwinnett Center, of a program for a completely unrelated conference!


Edit: And no, the Gwinnett Center's site says literally nothing about public transportation on its directions page. The only thing I could find was on the site for exhibitors--which just redirects people to the Gwinnett Transit site that I've discussed above.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Boom. That's a huge fail, not only for accessibility reasons, but for class reasons!

[codeman38]

Yeah!

What's really saddening is that this isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened to me. I've noticed quite often that people have no clue whatsoever how to access their own office via public transit, much less such things as convention venues. And half the time, the things I'm trying to find out about are things that could actually be relevant for poor people, people with disabilities, etc.

And in my experience, the people behind these things generally don't even think about such issues until it's brought up to them. It's like the concept of people who can't afford to drive, or who can't drive because of a disability, doesn't even occur to them.

[jesse_the_k]

Because it really, really doesn't. I've advocated for better public transit out on the street and in the halls of my city and state. There's a parking-lot-full of drivers who have no clue: no idea! The local school district sells a youth pass — a semester's worth of unlimited rides for $150 — which means that high school students, at least, get some experience with bus riding.

[roserodent]

You gotta love guesswork. I was invited to go and look around a school to see if it "met my access needs" for teaching. They were sure they only had a few steps anywhere in the school, but as we walked around it they kept saying "oh gosh, we forgot about those steps... oh, and thoes ones... Oh, I thought there were only one or two steps there (wrong! Eight with no handrail) - go outside your office and go and look with your eyes!!

I recently went to a disability event where there was plenty of parking, but sadly the car park was like the surface of the moon - I nearly disappeared under it in a speciality off-road suspension powerchair. Those in manual chairs who already struggle with self-propelling were just stuck in craters.