Disability task force recommends accessible rideshares, events, removing pathway barriers, and more
Just taking a walk in Boise can be treacherous for Dianna Willis.
Willis is blind and navigates with a guide dog. Willis said that her dog is trained to help her avoid obstacles. But if Willis is crossing the street and her dog sees an obstacle, like a garbage can, in the middle of a curb ramp, the dog may keep her in the street to avoid it, potentially exposing them both to traffic.
She said the city continues to see problems with people parking e-bikes and e-scooters in the middle of sidewalks, creating unpredictable hazards for people with disabilities.
“It is very dangerous and very frustrating,” Willis said.
Willis is a member of Boise’s Cross Disability Task Force, which is made up of members with varying disabilities. She shared her experience in a presentation to the Boise City Council on Tuesday about the task force’s six recommendations to improve the quality of life for residents and visitors with disabilities.
Willis highlighted recommendations on pedestrian pathway compliance and safety. One project completed this year was identifying the five most common pedestrian pathway barriers for people with disabilities. Besides e-bikes and scooters, other pathway barriers include signage and sandwich boards that block business entrances or pathways, overgrown trees and bushes, and shoveled snow blocking pathways and curb ramps.
Willis said the group made cards with the barriers and provided them to the city’s code enforcement and compliance, as well as the Downtown Boise Association.
“Our work will continue to educate and promote accessible pathways in Boise,” Willis said.
Task force takes on range of issues
Boise Community Accessibility Program Manager Heather Zeitlin said about 1 in 6 Boise residents have a disability.
“That spans every age, every background, and across all of our neighborhoods, making accessibility a city-wide issue,” Zeitlin said. Zeitlin’s job is ensuring that the city’s programs, services, and facilities are accessible to people with disabilities, and part of her work entails working with the cross disability task force.
In 2004, the city convened an accessible parking committee, which provided feedback on the need for accessible parking downtown. The city established the cross disability task force in 2020 to explore a broader range of issues, she said.
Task force members have offered their lived experience in service of improvements to outdoor areas, like Ridge to Rivers trails improvements, playgrounds, and 8th St. updates, Zeitlin said.
The group has also worked to provide education on disability etiquette, service animals, and other topics, including work on the city’s human resources training videos that all staff watch, Zeitlin said.
Zeitlin said some of the programs implemented by the task force pertain to public safety, like the Hidden Disabilities Sunflower Program. People with disabilities can request a green lanyard with sunflowers on it and wear it in city spaces, including the airport, to signify that they may need additional support, according to the program’s page.
Accessible parking, on-demand transportation
Two of the task force’s recommendations outlined to the council related to parking and transportation issues.
Jen Grush-Dale, a member of the task force, said access to downtown via parking is particularly important because it is many people’s gateway to civic engagement, shopping, and employment.
Locating accessible parking throughout downtown is important because many people with permits have conditions that make it difficult to walk a distance, Grush-Dale said.
“So clustering (accessible) parking spaces in one part of downtown doesn’t really work for us,” she said. “We need to have them distributed across the downtown corridor, and I have been involved in surveying spots and making recommendations on where the next one should go.”
Grush-Dale said this is a particularly pressing issue with all of the development in the downtown corridor in recent years.
She said she has communicated with the Capital City Development Corporation (CCDC) about making its garages more accessible and how to make some electric vehicle charging stations accessible to people with disabilities. A slide presented by Grush-Dale said that the city had completed an evaluation of downtown on-street ADA accessible parking stalls. Zeitlin told BoiseDev via email that the city now conducts an annual review of ADA stalls, and has updated its online map of the stalls with photos of each one so that users can preview street conditions before traveling.
Another issue raised by the task force is accessible on-demand transportation services. Jeremy Maxand said that prior to the rise of rideshare services like Uber and Lyft, the city had some cab companies that offered accessible rides for people who use wheelchairs. Now, while those companies have expanded transportation options for people without mobility-related disabilities, he thinks it has shrunk the inventory of cab companies that may have once offered vans with lifts and other accessibility features.
In some cities, city staff have engaged with rideshare companies to ensure that there are some wheelchair accessible vehicles, or WAV, he said. Uber’s website said it currently has WAV programs in four cities: New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, and plans to expand to more cities soon.
Maxand said, “There’s a little bit of throwing money at the problem that needs to happen, but I think that there needs to be a consensus by our city leaders that this is really important, and that we expect them to step up to the plate and make sure that everyone has access to that type of transportation, not just folks who don’t use wheelchairs, for example.”
The task force is recommending deployment of at least one rideshare WAV vehicle by 2027. Zeitlin said via email that the city has not yet initiated conversations with rideshare providers.
Special events, neighborhood association engagement, codifying the task force
Another set of recommendations entails taking stock of the accessibility of events hosted in the city.
Task force member Dana Gover said the group developed a guide to help event coordinators ensure they’re considering accessibility when planning the event.
Part of the task force’s recommendations to the city are to continue an audit program for at least two recurring events and two new events each year, with findings reported to the city’s special events subcommittee on an annual basis, according to a slide presented at the meeting. The program is ongoing.
Carol Baron said the task force developed a toolbox for neighborhood associations to find information about making their meetings and information distribution more accessible. For example, there are small grants available for interpretation services so that people who are deaf or hard of hearing can also participate.
Steven Snow said the task force is also recommending that the city codify the task force itself. The task force has worked with the city’s legal staff to research the structure, scope, and responsibilities of the body, according to a slide presented at the workshop.
“Now would be the time for the city council to recognize the importance of this task force that makes Boise an even better place to live,” Snow said. He commended those on the task force, all volunteers, for their commitment and efforts. “ … Codifying this protects the process and guarantees that this work will continue,” he said.
Boise Mayor Lauren McLean expressed her thanks to the task force committee members for sharing their recommendations.
“While we we can’t always do everything all at once, your recommendations, ideas, and suggestions really have had an impact, and will continue to have an impact,” McLean said.