Don't let accessibility features become "barriers"

Wang Qi

With economic development and social progress, our country has achieved certain results in the construction of barrier-free facilities, and many cities have launched special improvement campaigns for the barrier-free environment. Barrier-free facilities were originally meant to help people with disabilities, older adults, and others who have mobility difficulties or visual impairments. However, research has found that some public places lack barrier-free facilities or have them occupied, and that some facilities are not usable or cannot be used, which prevents people with mobility difficulties from getting around.

Barrier-free facilities have turned into “obstacles,” and the problems take many forms. In city squares, barrier-free pathways are blocked with S-shaped steel pipes and fixed iron chains; wheelchairs cannot pass, and people using crutches can only move with great difficulty. At hospital entrances, there is a lack of assistive ramps, and security personnel even require elderly people to pass through isolation barriers, leaving them and their family members feeling utterly helpless. Barrier-free restrooms are beset with problems: in some cases, safety grab bars’ length, paper dispensers, and emergency call buttons are not positioned according to regulations; in other cases, they are closed off, repurposed for other uses, or have extremely poor sanitation. Tactile paving is occupied by electric bicycles and vehicles, becoming “dead-end roads,” and even performs poorly in terms of slip resistance on rainy days due to material issues. Braille signage has errors and omissions, misleading people with visual impairments. Missing audio prompts causes people with visual impairments to lose their way while traveling. These are not isolated cases, but widespread across multiple regions, reflecting numerous loopholes in the construction and management of barrier-free facilities.

Barrier-free facilities have turned into “obstacles,” and behind this are complex causes. From a legal perspective, the current legislative model is promotional legislation, with many hortatory provisions and an insufficient oversight mechanism; the allocation of rights and responsibilities needs finer detail, and relevant local legislation urgently needs revision. This means that when barrier-free facilities are occupied and other situations arise, people who need them find it difficult to proactively and positively exercise their rights. During the construction process, real-world challenges such as conflicts over property rights, space constraints, structural safety, and capital investment also impose many “customized” requirements for improving the barrier-free environment, limiting facility enhancement. In the management phase, problems such as unclear responsible parties, passing the buck to one another, insufficient coordination authority, or the lack of resources lead to a “rebuild-heavy, manage-light” approach to barrier-free facilities, preventing timely and effective maintenance.

Barrier-free facilities turning into “obstacles” brings negative impacts that cannot be ignored. For special groups such as people with disabilities and older adults, this severely affects their freedom of movement and quality of life, reducing their motivation to integrate into society. From a societal perspective, this goes against the original intent of the “whole population sharing” of barrier-free environment construction, making it unfavorable to building a more inclusive and harmonious social environment. It also results in waste of resources: the government invests large sums to build barrier-free facilities, yet due to various problems they fail to play their intended role.

To address the problem of barrier-free facilities turning into “obstacles,” it requires concerted efforts from multiple parties. Strengthening top-level design is crucial: improve relevant laws and regulations, refine the allocation of rights and responsibilities, and intensify the pursuit of liability for illegal acts, thereby providing a solid legal guarantee for barrier-free environment construction. In the oversight and management phase, relevant authorities should proactively optimize responsibility allocation and work processes, establish special functions to coordinate barrier-free needs, and realize systematized and professionalized services. At the same time, encourage social forces to participate: invite actual users such as people with disabilities and older adults to take part in the planning, construction, and acceptance testing of barrier-free facilities, and introduce digital and intelligent technologies to enhance the level of intelligent supervision. By bridging departmental and industry barriers, using industrial modernization and scale as guidance, more business entities can be mobilized to participate in the innovation, application, and promotion of barrier-free-related industries.

Barrier-free environment construction is an important hallmark of social progress and civilization, and it concerns the vital interests of everyone. We must not allow barrier-free facilities to become “obstacles.” Instead, we should work together so these facilities can truly function and provide special groups with a comfortable, convenient space.

This column article in this edition only represents the author’s personal views

(Editor-in-charge: Wang Zhiqiang HF013)

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