When Aubrie Lee and Peter Saathoff-Harshfield ride Amtrak’s Coast Starlight up the California coast or the Lake Shore Limited along the Great Lakes, they seek out more than just a seat with a view. They’re also on the lookout for garbage cans and suitcases blocking their spot.
Ms. Lee, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a power wheelchair, often relies on Amtrak’s designated wheelchair spaces to travel. Despite signs requiring those areas be kept clear, they frequently end up as repositories for luggage and trash.
Mr. Saathoff-Harshfield, who has low vision and depends on screen-reading software, contends with glitches and inaccessible features when he uses Amtrak’s app.
The couple, who estimate that they’ve spent 560 hours on Amtrak together in the last three years, traveling coast-to-coast five times, said that riding the train is still much easier than flying. But the indignities they’ve experienced — not just trash cans and a faulty app but also incorrectly deployed boarding ramps, inaccessible dining cars and more — have left them with the sense that they must constantly advocate to receive the services they’re entitled to by law.
“It makes me feel like freight,” Ms. Lee said. “I don’t feel respected as a person.”
The Americans With Disabilities Act, which became law in 1990, prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities and mandates that businesses, including Amtrak, provide people with disabilities an “equal opportunity” to use their services.
Amtrak aims to be fully compliant with the A.D.A. by 2029. But a report last month from Amtrak’s Office of Inspector General showed how far the railroad company still has to go. The report found that while Amtrak was making progress toward its accessibility goals, it lacked an overarching strategy to improve customer service for passengers with disabilities and did not collect or use all the data at its disposal to improve those passengers’ experiences.
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The post Disabled Amtrak Riders See Progress, but Still ‘Feel Like Freight’ appeared first on New York Times.
