As was reported by YWN-ISRAEL, work has begun to place pillars at hundreds of Jerusalem bus stops to prevent vehicular ramming attacks. Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) reports that while work is moving ahead as planned, it appears someone forgot to take persons in wheelchairs into consideration before placing the pillars at the bus stops.

Complaints have been received by an ombudsman’s office that deals with addressing the needs of the disabled community regarding now fortified bus stops that are no longer accessible to them in their wheelchairs. One is reminded the bus stops selected for fortification are those viewed as ‘high-risk’ which generally means bus stops that are in busy places such as Binyanei Ha’uma and other areas that serve thousands of riders daily, including persons in wheelchairs.

Making things worse, Egged has informed the ombudsman’s office that the ramp which the driver opens manually to accommodate a person in a wheel chair are blocked by the pillars.

The stops along routes with buses equipped with the ramps have a wheelchair symbol where the ramp will open, but if the bus pulls into the curb, that area is blocked by pillars. If the bus stops far from the curb to permit opening the ramp, a person in a wheelchair is not able to ride directly onto the ramp into the bus because of the curb separating from the sidewalk and the bus, which is parked too far away for the ramp to rest atop of the sidewalk. The ramp is a certain length and its extends directly onto a sidewalk when a bus pulls up alongside the curb.

According to Galei Tzahal, when asked to comment, the Jerusalem Director-General, Amnon Merchav said, “certainly the work was conducted in consultation with officials dealing with disabled to provide accessibility to public transportation to them and in some cases, special arrangements were made to make sure there is accessibility.

The mayor’s office says “We are working to fortify 300 bus stops as quickly as possible to prevent attacks against people. We view the matter of disabled accessibility in the public sector as being paramount, especially regarding the fortification of bus stops”.

The words of the Transportation Ministry officials more or less echo the others. Everyone is concerned with wheelchair access and assures the tzibur it will be so, but in actuality, this is already not the case in some areas.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)