Roll and Stroll with Portland Citizen's Disability Advisory Committee (PCDAC)

Roll and Stroll with Portland Citizen's Disability Advisory Committee (PCDAC)

To raise awareness of how people with disabilities get around Portland, the Transportation Subcommittee of Portland's Citizen's Disability Advisory Committee (PCDAC) is hosting a special "Roll and Stroll" event from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Friday, September 14, outside City Hall. City Commissioners Sam Adams and Dan Saltzman, along with PDOT Director Sue Keil and PCDAC members, will have a chance to use mobility devices that include but are not limited to wheelchairs and goggles along with white canes to assimilate what people with disabilities use daily to access Portland streets and sidewalks.

The event will bring attention to how the built environment can impact mobility and livability for people with disabilities. Concerns among people with disabilities include limited mobility, loss of control over the environment, isolation in community, and limited access to education, employment, and other opportunities. The goal of this event is to raise awareness how the built environment and travel options influence these issues to some extent.

When: 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m., Friday, September 14

Where: 4th Avenue entrance to City Hall, 1221 SW 4th Ave

Who: Scheduled participants:
City Commissioner Sam Adams
City Commissioner Dan Saltzman
Sue Keil, Director, Portland Office of Transportation
City Hall staff
PDOT staff
PCDAC members

Last Friday, September 7th, PCDAC sponsored another "Roll and Stroll" with the Chiefs of Staff from both Commissioner Erik Sten and Sam Adams' offices. PDOT staff as well as Commissioner Adams' Senior Policy Director for Transportation also participated.

For more information about the event, contact PCDAC Vice Chair Michael Levine at 503-504-2585 or levine.ada@gmail.com. Levine is also Chair of the PCDAC Transportation Committee.
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Roland Chlapowski's recent posts | Print this page

Posted Thu, 09/13/2007 - 1:47pm.

JK:The few wheel chair

Submitted by jim karlock on Fri, 09/14/2007 - 2:49am.

JK:The few wheel chair confined people that I have met drive cars. They, more than most, need door to door transport, under their control, instead of someone else's (Trimet).

One even commuted from Canada on a weekly basis. He didn't take the train, He didn't fly. He drove his Camero!

More than most people, the handicapped, need cars to lead their daily lives. Transit is a much bigger burden on the handicapped (and the aged) than it is for most people.

Please quit making life more difficult for the handicapped by forcing them to transit.
Please quit making life more expensive for low income people by proposing carbon taxes.
Please quit making life more difficult for low income people by forcing them to transit - they need cars, not toy trains.

Thanks
JK

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...

Submitted by Roland Chlapowski on Fri, 09/14/2007 - 8:30am.

"The few wheel chair confined people that I have met drive cars."

Somehow that doesn't surprise me one bit, Jim.

Here's the thing- for people who are so immobile that they can't drive, or who aren't wealthy enough to be able to care for and maintain a car, or have poor vision (which often comes with old age), or who just don't like having to drive, TRANSIT IS THEIR ONLY OPTION.

Also, many of the wheelchairs that people use today are so heavy and difficult to fold that if they are taking a car ride to get to where they need to go, it almost certainly means that those people are "dependent" upon others for the transportation. My point: Implying that everyone with a handicap would be able to drive free in a camaro if we just stopped spending money on light rail and transit is nothing more than wishful thinking, and purposefully misleading wishful thinking at that.

One of the things that I did as part of this great experiential learning outing was TO WEAR GOGGLES THAT MADE ME HAVE THE VISION EQUIVALENT OF BEING LEGALLY BLIND. Obviously, cars aren't an option for them - transit is the ONLY option.

Also, Jim, exploiting the handicapped and the poor as rhetorical devices to defend your personal driving fetish is worthy of a head shaking.

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You are wrong as ususal

Submitted by jim karlock on Sat, 09/15/2007 - 1:20am.

Roland Chlapowski: Here's the thing- for people who are so immobile that they can't drive, or who aren't wealthy enough to be able to care for and maintain a car, or have poor vision (which often comes with old age), or who just don't like having to drive, TRANSIT IS THEIR ONLY OPTION.
JK: You have to be kidding - right? Do you really expect people in such poor shape to walk 1/4 mile to the toy train? They would be better served by transportation vouchers which they could use on something practical for them: TAXI FARE - door to door, no exposure to criminals etc. Or jitneys if you guys would allow transit competition in Portland, but Trimet is so inefficient it could not survive competition. Sad.

Roland Chlapowski: Also, many of the wheelchairs that people use today are so heavy and difficult to fold that if they are taking a car ride to get to where they need to go, it almost certainly means that those people are "dependent" upon others for the transportation.
JK: You really need to get better informed:
1. A lady in a class that I just took got to class by driving a van that had a hoist to lift her heavy electric wheel chair inside, where she transferred to the driver’s seat. Again wouldn’t it be better to help these people get cars, than to waste billions on toy trains that don’t serve them to any real degree?

2. Another person wheels his chair up a ramp in the side door of his van and right up to the steering wheel. (Of course he locks the wheel chair into position.)

Roland Chlapowski: My point: Implying that everyone with a handicap would be able to drive free in a camaro if we just stopped spending money on light rail and transit is nothing more than wishful thinking
JK: If we hadn’t wasted $2 billion on toy trains (another $2-4 billion coming) we would have a lot of money for excellent bus service and lots leftover for transpiration welfare as a separate budget item, instead of co-mingling it with ordinary transit expenses.

Roland Chlapowski: , and purposefully misleading wishful thinking at that.
JK: I am getting really tired of your unfounded, out of left field, accusations especially after you have not even bothered to find out how thing really work.

Roland Chlapowski: One of the things that I did as part of this great experiential learning outing was TO WEAR GOGGLES THAT MADE ME HAVE THE VISION EQUIVALENT OF BEING LEGALLY BLIND.
JK: My, how touchy-feely of you. Now why don’t you look for transpiration options to make their life easier instead of using the handicapped as an excuse to feed billions to politically connected developers. (Streetcar = development oriented transit)

Roland Chlapowski: Obviously, cars aren't an option for them - transit is the ONLY option.
JK: Again you show your ignorance. What about taxis and jitneys?

Roland Chlapowski: Also, Jim, exploiting the handicapped and the poor as rhetorical devices to defend your personal driving fetish is worthy of a head shaking.
JK: You are the one exploiting their handicap as an excuse to feed money to campaign donor developers.

Not to mention the fact that one elected official, who just happens to be the region’s biggest toy train advocate, just happens to also work for a company that did work on at least two of our current toy train lines. (I wonder how much Brian Newman gets under the table for that little conflict of interest.)

Thanks
JK

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Here are the facts.

Submitted by Roland Chlapowski on Mon, 09/17/2007 - 9:05am.

JK: You have to be kidding - right? Do you really expect people in such poor shape to walk 1/4 mile to the toy train?

Fact: the fastest growing program in TriMet is the popular LIFT program, which picks up elderly and handicapped people AT THEIR DOOR and drops them off at the DOOR OF THEIR DESTINATION. And while I want to double check on this, I believe that when cabs are cheaper and more feasible than the TriMet LIFT van for specific citizens, cab vouchers are or can be used instead of the LIFT van.

JK: My, how touchy-feely of you. Now why don’t you look for transpiration options to make their life easier instead of using the handicapped as an excuse to feed billions to politically connected developers. (Streetcar = development oriented transit)

Fact: Hmmmm... really dodged the question on that one. Good job! Transit seems to me to be the most sensible option for blind people... what type of car (or other "transpiration" options) would you "develop" for the blind, Jim?

After you fully ducked the issue, you then spewed out some good examples of the ad hominem attacks you say you deplore SOOOO much! Strange, but I'm not surprised by the fact that you have different standards for how you carry yourself vs. your expections of others. ("Ad hominem attacks on the other guys feel good, but against me they feel bad" - right Jim?)

But that is a standard conservative quality, right? (a la- Senators Vitter and Larry "naughty boy" Craig)

And again, you don't take into account whether or not people have incomes high enough to be able to own and maintain a car.

It's really great in theory to say that we should buy everyone who would benefit from one a fully outfitted handicap lift van (and then help pay for operations and maintenance, I suppose), but do you think that it is at all realistic?

We can't even get a fifth of our population adequate health care coverage! I don't know what world you are living in, but I don't see taxpayers being very supportive of the idea of paying for others' personal vehicles in the near future. Giving you the beneft of the doubt, though, something tells me that the normally obstructionist conservatives who love oil and cars and all things privatized might be more willing to throw money at this idea than others. (They and their cronies would stand to make a buck off such a policy, of course.)

That said, when push comes to shove, I doubt that conservatives would actually be willing to take anything out of their pocket to actually pay for the program. Big on grand theories, when it comes to actually governing responsibly, conservatives are quite inept and their ever-present stinginess keeps them from getting anything done (unless they can drive up huge deficits, of course).

Also, I don't understand- why do all you anti-transit folks love jitneys? Please explain.

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Roland: Also, I don't

Submitted by jim karlock on Fri, 09/21/2007 - 1:19am.

Roland: Also, I don't understand- why do all you anti-transit folks love jitneys? Please explain.
JK: I did 2-3 days ago but I got a message that my posting was waiting for approval.

It still hasn’t appeared.

Why did you not approve it in the intervening days?

Are you too embarrassed by the list of campaign donors in that message?

Thanks
JK

» reply

well, Jim...

Submitted by Roland Chlapowski on Fri, 09/21/2007 - 10:49am.

First off, I dont know if you've realized, but we've been dealing with some other things this week that are a tad bit more consequential than your post that appears to be caught up in our spam filter.

As I explained to you in person before, when messages come from an IP address that was previously used for spam, then the site sometimes automtically makes your posts subject to approval from staff.

But since we really don't moderate the blog, and since this isnt somethign that happens very much, we obviously just had more important things to do.

Sorry Jim.

I have to say, though, that we have one of THE most liberal blogs on the web in terms of letting anyone post whatever they want. So implying censorship on our part is pretty interesting to hear from you.

Not that you haven't tempted me, Jim, to block your multiple posts many times in the past. Because you certainly, certainly have...

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