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Broken promises: BTS still off limits to disabled

By Sasiwan Mokkhasen, Staff Reporter -

 

 

BANGKOK — To ascend to BTS Mo Chit, one must first climb 45 steps. They might as well be a million for Manit Inpim, a wheelchair-bound activist who for years has fought for access to the popular rail service.

 

Twenty-one months after a landmark court decision gave the city a year to install elevators at all stations, a review by Khaosod English found that while many stations had what appear to be elevators – they don’t work.

 

Full story: http://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/transpo/2016/09/15/broken-promises-bts-still-off-limits-disabled/

 

-- © Copyright Khaosod English 2016-09-15

[colinneil]

Wheelchair access that is a joke !!!!

In Thailand disabled people are seen as a nuisance.

If you are disabled the attitude is go home, stay there and wait to die.

You are not a useful member of society anymore.

 

Nobody knows better than me.

If out and about in my wheelchair some people deliberately block my path.

You are a nobody. So i fully understand the frustrations of Mamit Inpin.

 

Now i wait for the know it alls on here to ridicule my post.

Edited September 15, 2016 by colinneil

[Bsd]

Colin, I hope no one mocks your post.  Every day that I walk down a street in Thailand, it doesn't matter where, I wonder how people with limited mobility, not just those in wheel chairs, could ever get around.

 

I am not sure what good elevators into BTS stations are going to do if you can't roll down the street to get to them in the first place.

 

See:

- Motorcycles driving down foot paths

- Signs

- Broken pavements

- Food/knockoff good vendors

- No ramps down to cross streets/driveways

- Narrow footpaths that suddenly stop 

[condobrit001]

I don't think anyone would ridicule your post. I have a few wheelchair-bound friends who bravely tackle Bangkok's roads and pathways on a daily basis. Even getting to a BTS or MTS is challenging for them due to the disrepair of the sidewalks, street food vendors who block pathways and the general ignorance of both Thais and others who block sidewalks to chat on their phones.

[gamini]

I agree with most of the posts about the problems for disabled. Most annoying thing I found is that the elevators for the disabled at the BTS stations are all locked and no one there.
However, since I became disabled and semi-wheelchair-bound I have found that Thais are the most considerate and caring people. Everyone tries to help me everywhere, including the taxi drivers in Bangkok.  .

[Alive]

3 hours ago, colinneil said:

Wheelchair access that is a joke !!!!

In Thailand disabled people are seen as a nuisance.

If you are disabled the attitude is go home, stay there and wait to die.

You are not a useful member of society anymore.

 

It's the same for poor....

 

Access for the poor is a joke !!!!

In Thailand poor people are seen as a nuisance.

If you are poor the attitude is go home, stay there and wait to die.

You are not a useful member of society anymore.

[exalll]

55 minutes ago, condobrit001 said:

I don't think anyone would ridicule your post. I have a few wheelchair-bound friends who bravely tackle Bangkok's roads and pathways on a daily basis. Even getting to a BTS or MTS is challenging for them due to the disrepair of the sidewalks, street food vendors who block pathways and the general ignorance of both Thais and others who block sidewalks to chat on their phones.

 

There is now an elevator at Ploenchit BTS - took them for ever to build it.  But, as far as I can see, there is only one on the north side of the street - if you are on the south side, you can access it by using the overpass ... the same set of stairs that provide access to the BTS! 

[monkey4u]

A lot of people suffer from blindness when it comes seeing someone in a wheel chair

Hua Hin immigration built a wheelchair ramp

Too bad about all the bikes parked at the bottom of it, or the people who stand and talk on it, some expect you to climb the steps in your chair

 

[elgordo38]

5 hours ago, colinneil said:

Wheelchair access that is a joke !!!!

In Thailand disabled people are seen as a nuisance.

If you are disabled the attitude is go home, stay there and wait to die.

You are not a useful member of society anymore.

 

Nobody knows better than me.

If out and about in my wheelchair some people deliberately block my path.

You are a nobody. So i fully understand the frustrations of Mamit Inpin.

 

Now i wait for the know it alls on here to ridicule my post.

On the contrary colin I feel for you. There was also a walkway mentioned here that the government promised to make wheel chair accessible years ago and then backed out. Using government logic if it costs money and for the good of the people its a non starter. If it is submersible and operates underwater to fight illusionary battles with a non existent enemy now that is an attention grabber for the Thai generals that love to play Battleship. You cannot take the boy and  his toys out of the man.

[Bangkok Barry]

I have a wheelchair-bound friend from the UK who has managed to travel the world, including getting on the Great Wall of China. He told me that Bangkok is by far the worst city he has ever seen for the disabled.

[Thian]

10 hours ago, colinneil said:

Wheelchair access that is a joke !!!!

In Thailand disabled people are seen as a nuisance.

If you are disabled the attitude is go home, stay there and wait to die.

You are not a useful member of society anymore.

 

Nobody knows better than me.

If out and about in my wheelchair some people deliberately block my path.

You are a nobody. So i fully understand the frustrations of Mamit Inpin.

 

Now i wait for the know it alls on here to ridicule my post.

 

Why would we ridicule your post? 

 

Today i was standing in the walkway of a mall with many tiny shops, another vendor came into the walkway while pushing a huge cart to stock his shop i guess. He pushed it to very close to me so i moved on but i thought it was pretty rude to do. I could have been looking at his products and he also wouldn't be happy if another vendor chased me away with a cart.

 

But i agree about the public transport or sidewalks, they are really no good for wheelchairs, but also not for walking people. I walked to the new purple line station last week and i even had to walk on the road since the sidewalk had deep holes, loads of advertisings totally blocking the walkway and so on...Cars even horned to me while i walked on the road...

 

Last week i wanted to buy wheelchair wheels in a wheelchair shop. I tested a wheelchair and found out the frontwheels (it was a brandname Karma) couldn't even make a 360 degree spin! they touched the footrests ...I showed the vendor the issue and he had never seen that before he said...come on, get real! How dumb can they be?

 

Anyway, even in the moobaan the pavement is very bad...many neighbours with prams complained about it so they repaired the cracks and holes...6 months later all the repairs are broken again and it's still very bad...we all walk on the road now.

 

The new skytrain has many more issues, they can't speak english AT ALL at the counter...and you even can't hear them because the speaker in the window of the ticketbooth is not working...Welcome to Thailand 

[notmyself]

14 hours ago, gamini said:

However, since I became disabled and semi-wheelchair-bound I have found that Thais are the most considerate and caring people. Everyone tries to help me everywhere, including the taxi drivers in Bangkok.  .

 

I fully agree with you. People, your general man on the street, care more than most.

 

15 hours ago, Bsd said:

I am not sure what good elevators into BTS stations are going to do if you can't roll down the street to get to them in the first place.

 

See:

- Motorcycles driving down foot paths

- Signs

- Broken pavements

- Food/knockoff good vendors

- No ramps down to cross streets/driveways

- Narrow footpaths that suddenly stop 

 

In my opinion as a paraplegic, BKK offer one of the best disabled passenger programs in the world but as soon as I leave the airport, I'm screwed. Never mind wheelchairs as I manage to 'walk' to most places with the aid of two crutches and this is also a nightmare. There was a report some time back that all government buildings had to provide disabled access but no idea what became of it. The same arguments spoken about above were mentioned.

[MiKT]

Its no good blaming the BTS for the lack of wheelchair access to the skytrain or saying that it was not built for the poor. These are just knee jerk responses to a much bigger problem. Which is that Thailand is still a developing country and most of the roads and pavements in Bangkok are not good for able bodied fit people let alone for wheelchairs. It will take a lot more years to pass before things improve.

 

When the BTS was built it was the rich people who tried to ban stations near certain schools as they did not want their so called "HOSO" kids to travel on the train with the common people. Totally unlike Singapore where the rich schools pressurised the government to build stations for their kids.

 

It was a huge struggle to get the BTS built and their was a lot of debate about wheelchair access at the time, but it was simply lack of money and the difficulties of fitting in lifts to many stations (as is being seen now that prevented it happening). The excellent, simple station designs were very good for the available money; with no waste on fancy fittings and extensive but not of any practical use, artwork or fancy architectural bits and pieces found on many railways.

 

It was a good court decision to get the BTS to fit lifts, but as anyone who knows anything about railways can tell you, given the limited after public operating hours available (4 hrs/night) the 1 year timescale was never realistic, so it has simply added to the dissatisfaction of the people who need the lifts. That is many elderly people and others who are not so mobile, not just wheelchair users.

 

The BTS has been very reliable and a huge benefit to Bangkok as the thousands who were stuck because of the recent broken down train will tell you, so to say that without proper wheelchair access it will be a disaster for Bangkok is simply crying wolf nonsense and only reduces the chances of getting more done for disabled people (not just with railways) over the years to come.

 

It would be better for activists to spend their money on some engineering specialists who could give them sensible advice about timescales than more lawyers who will do nothing except raise unrealistic expectations.

 

NB Anybody who says that Bangkok is the worst place for wheelchairs in the streets, simply has not been around enough. Its not good, and a lot more needs to be done, not just in Bangkok, but everywhere, but it is by no means the worst place in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gdgbb]

13 hours ago, Thian said:

 

The new skytrain has many more issues, they can't speak english AT ALL at the counter...and you even can't hear them because the speaker in the window of the ticketbooth is not working...Welcome to Thailand 

 

English is spoken at all the BTS ticket booths and I have never had any difficulty hearing what is said by the staff, the speaker is usually unnecessary.

[Crossy]

3 minutes ago, gdgbb said:

 

English is spoken at all the BTS ticket booths and I have never had any difficulty hearing what is said by the staff, the speaker is usually unnecessary.

 

Thian is moaning about the Purple Line (which he says he never uses). He is right fewer of the staff speak English than either the Blue or Green lines, but it's not exactly in a tourist-centric area.

 

 

[gdgbb]

2 minutes ago, Crossy said:

 

Thian is moaning about the Purple Line (which he says he never uses). He is right fewer of the staff speak English than either the Blue or Green lines, but it's not exactly in a tourist-centric area.

 

 

 

He didn't mention the Purple Line and this is a thread about BTS stations in general not a specific line.

[Crossy]

38 minutes ago, gdgbb said:

He didn't mention the Purple Line and this is a thread about BTS stations in general not a specific line.

 

Correct and correct.

 

He refers to the Purple Line as "the new skytrain" (which it isn't) in many of his posts in other threads.

 

I was clarifying to gdgbb what Thian was talking about.

[MiKT]

9 hours ago, Crossy said:

 

Correct and correct.

 

He refers to the Purple Line as "the new skytrain" (which it isn't) in many of his posts in other threads.

 

I was clarifying to gdgbb what Thian was talking about.

 

Oh dear Crossy, whilst this thread was specific to lift-less access to any line of the BTS, please can we have a quick moan about the dreadful split concourse station design for the Purple Line which makes any-abled access a joke.

 

This is something the wheelchair access activists (and everybody else) should really be activating against for future railways in Thailand.

 

PS why can't it be the "New Skytrain" it is elevated, or was the Airport Link  a better candidate for that title?

 

So the Purple Line should be the "Newest Skytrain" - until it disappears underground in the future.

 

 

[Crossy]

@MiKT  we can if you want (but let's limit it to access, there are PL-centric threads for other whinges), you know my opinion of the PL station layouts from Day-0 of the project but architects seem to rule the roost

 

At least the PL stations have lifts on both sides of the road (but not always both ends of the station) and the Park and Ride locations have level access from the disabled parking bays to the concourse.

 

What do we call the Blue Line (the MRT) when it pops out of the ground at Tao Poon? I've always reserved "SkyTrain" for the lines operated by BTS and "MRT" for the lines operated by BMCL (now BEM).

 

[MiKT]

15 hours ago, Crossy said:

@MiKT  we can if you want (but let's limit it to access, there are PL-centric threads for other whinges), you know my opinion of the PL station layouts from Day-0 of the project but architects seem to rule the roost

 

At least the PL stations have lifts on both sides of the road (but not always both ends of the station) and the Park and Ride locations have level access from the disabled parking bays to the concourse.

 

What do we call the Blue Line (the MRT) when it pops out of the ground at Tao Poon? I've always reserved "SkyTrain" for the lines operated by BTS and "MRT" for the lines operated by BMCL (now BEM).

 

 

Yes, you are right Crossy, The Skytrain is the BTS no doubt about it.

 

The Purple Line is better for access, as it should be 20 years after the BTS, but still not good enough and the split concourses just negate any other advances.

 

The problems are not so apparent now with only the initial batches of passenger which are naturally very low. But as demographics and housing availability change around the new railway in the future as they always do eventually, the thought of lots of wheelchair users all trying to pass each and everybody else as they try to determine which is the best way to go along the platform to find their way out is ............................not very encouraging.

 

How about  the skyblue extension, or even the bluesky extension?

 

going now.....

 

 

 

 

 

[fishbrando]

On 9/15/2016 at 10:12 PM, Thian said:

 

Why would we ridicule your post? 

 

 

Because...Thaivisa.