Zurich is examining plans: people with disabilities will soon no longer need a ticket for public transport

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Access to buildings, apartments, facilities and public transport must be possible without difficult circumstances for people with mobility problems. This is stated in the Federal Disability Equality Act of 2004. A transition period of twenty years applies to trains, trams and buses. This actually means that from January all public transport stops must be accessible to people in wheelchairs.

But every third bus stop in the canton of Zurich is still not wheelchair accessible. Apparently twenty years of transition was not enough.

Driving service as an emergency solution

As the only practical solution, the canton of Zurich will introduce replacement transport services from the beginning of this year, as the government announced in the spring. From next year, anyone with reduced mobility can request car transport to the nearest barrier-free stop or train station if independent access to public transport is not possible. A regular public transport ticket is sufficient to travel with the shuttle service.

But this measure alone is not enough for the two Zurich SP politicians Islam Alijaj (37) and Anna Graff (25). They called on the city government to investigate how the costs of public transport for people with disabilities in the city of Zurich (zone 110) can be covered by municipal contributions.

This will continue until the city’s public transport system is completely barrier-free in accordance with the Disability Equality Act. This week, the Zurich city council adopted the postulate. Now the city of Zurich must investigate how it can implement this.

“I’m willing to pay, but…”

“We especially want to put pressure on the implementation of accessibility in public transport to make progress,” says Alijaj, who is now also a national councilor. He is certainly willing to pay for public transport, “but not if I can’t use it,” says Alijaj, who depends on a wheelchair.

Unfortunately, Zurich is not an unfortunate exception. By the end of this year, only 60 percent of train stations in Switzerland will be usable by people with disabilities. By the end of this year, about a third of Switzerland’s 23,000 bus and tram stops will meet the requirements of the Equal Opportunities for People with Disabilities Act. This was announced in November by the Public Transport Association (VöV), the Swiss Association of Cities and Municipalities. VöV and the public sector attribute the fact that this was not entirely successful to the high costs of structural adjustments.

Source:Blick