Urban officials have taken intermittent measures in recent years for improving urban infrastructure and transportation services to meet the needs of people with disabilities.
However, “the measures taken so far have been inadequate and failed to solve even the most basic problems of the disability community”, Jafar Tashakkori, chairman of Tehran City Council's Transportation Commission, said in TCC’s Sunday meeting, IRNA reported.
Most Iranian cities, let alone underdeveloped towns, are poorly adapted to the needs of people with disabilities.
According to Tashakkori, the authorities' inaction in resolving the issue is a form of social injustice against the disability community.
“People with physical complications, like everyone else, needs medical services, education, recreation, a job, travel facilities, social interaction and family get-together, for which the basic and fundamental element is access to means of transportation,” he added
The official noted that except for Tehran, where disability inclusion measures have been taken to some extent, crucial initiatives need to be launched throughout the country.
He called on the State Welfare Organization of Iran to join municipalities to help realize the objective and asked the government to financially support disability inclusion projects.
Kazem Nazmdeh, the head of SWO’s Rehabilitation Office, had earlier said under 30% of urban and public spaces in Iran have been retrofitted for the disabled.
Nazmdeh told reporters that efforts to make public facilities more accessible for the disabled had long been neglected.
Notwithstanding the measures taken so far, much more needs to be done for making Iranian cities more disabled-friendly
According to the Statistical Center of Iran, the total number of people with at least one type of disability (physical, hearing, visual and/or mental) in the country exceeds 11 million, which is 13.5% of the total population of 83 million.
However, those registered by SWO are close to 1.5 million, of which 100,000 have chronic disability and are housed in care centers affiliated to the state organization.
"A large number of people with disabilities live with their families in cities and villages. They are in dire need of specialized and daily care to be able to lead normal lives," he said.
Nazmdeh recommended clearing urban spaces of physical barriers that hamper the movement of the disabled to facilitate their access to shops, banks, cinemas, hospitals and leisure centers.
Providing ramps and stairway lifts, widening doorways, installing automatic doors, providing more lighting and fixing clear signs in public places and buildings are other measures required by people with physical and visual impairments.
Previous Measures in Tehran
Last year, Ali Asghar Eynolqozat, a former Tehran Municipality official, said that at the behest of Traffic Police, railings were installed in Tehran to prevent bikes from entering sidewalks. However, these railings made the pavements inaccessible to people with disabilities, especially wheelchair users.
As a result, TM issued a directive, calling on urban officials to remove these railings.
Urban infrastructures need to be overhauled to make public transportation stations more convenient for people with disabilities.
Although Eynolqozat acknowledged the hazards of bikers entering sidewalks, he said this does not necessitate the installation of barriers that prevent people with disabilities from using the pavement.
Public Transport Readjustment
Mohsen Pourseyyed Aqaei, a former TM official, had earlier said the municipality has increased the number of parking spaces, especially for people with disabilities, along the roadside, in public parking lots and transportation terminals.
He added that work was also progressing to equip all subway stations in Tehran with elevators. From the total of 169 subway stations in the metropolis, elevators are yet to be installed in 49 stations.
Aqaei noted that special ramps have been installed in some stations to ease commutation for people with disabilities.
As a complementary measure, TM has launched an online section on its website (Map.tehran.ir) to help them locate areas adjusted for their use.
The municipality's Information and Communications Technologies Organization is set to launch a smartphone application to include the map of disabled-friendly public places.
Users with physical disabilities can search for a particular site in the interactive map on TM’s website and find out if the place has disabled-friendly facilities.
Tehran’s Bus Rapid Transit services, officially inaugurated in 2008, are also being modified to facilitate the movement of people with disabilities. Ramps are being installed at BRT bus stations to ease access for wheelchair users.
Tehran Bus Company had earlier announced that the capital's bus fleet has been upgraded with three new features in favor of those who are visually impaired.
The company launched a voice bus stop announcement system in Tehran's BRT lines. The system calls out the name of each station in advance, so that people with visually impairment do not miss their stop.
According to TBC, the estimated time of bus arrival is also announced vocally and through notice boards.
Also, 36 path guide elements, special boundaries and corduroy paths have been established at BRT stations to help people with visual impairment easily find their way to the buses.
Besides, 190 ticket machines in bus stations have been upgraded with Braille notes to ease their use for citizens with visual impairment.
Tehran is home to 105,758 people with disabilities and notwithstanding the measures taken so far, much more needs to be done for making the city more disabled-friendly.
