Public Handicapped-Accessible Bathrooms are Often Challenging

On a recent Sunday, my friend was accompanying me to a public restroom on a college campus. It was a tiring journey for me, pushing my seated walker that I had selected for the outing over a variety of walking surfaces.

I don’t usually let on and I may look as though I can navigate OK with my walker, but every step is an effort. Nerve damage has wreaked havoc on my balance and my legs. I have neuropathy, so I have little feeling in my feet. I have to concentrate or I will lose my balance or trip. 

And my legs feel extremely heavy. While I walk for exercise, it’s never easy or fun. It’s as if I’m lugging around two concrete blocks.

We walked on, following the signs that led us around a corner and up the ramp to the bathroom. I noted handicapped accessible signs along the way. But when we entered the restroom, my friend pointed out that the handicapped stall was the furthest from the door. 

So I had longer to walk than those for whom walking was not a problem.

“That doesn’t seem right,” she said.

I agreed, saying that’s usually the case in public restrooms.

“Unfortunately, they didn’t consult with me when they built these bathrooms,”  I said.

I often wish someone would. 

While I’m not one of those types who make a career out of measuring doorways and railings and sinks to make sure they are ADA compliant, I welcome the resulting attention to the needs of the disabled. Unless you have mobility issues -- or you are close someone who does -- you don’t notice how difficult it is for us to navigate the most basic facilities.

While I am grateful that the Americans with Disabilities Act has tried to ensure that facilities are accessible to the disabled, the reality is there is much to be improved upon. And some of it is just common sense.

Nobody asked me, but if they had, here’s a few things I would advise to whomever is designing handicapped accessible restrooms used by the public.

Place the handicapped stalls near the front of the restrooms. It’s disheartening and sometimes disruptive to finally get to a facility and then have to walk to the very, very back (in the larger restrooms) to find the stall.

Install doors to the stalls that swing both ways. Very few restrooms have these. Do you realize how hard it is to open the door toward you while you are using a walker and have balance problems? Can you image how nearly impossible that is for someone in a wheelchair? When I was alone in a wheelchair at one of my lowest points and had to use a small stall with a open-out door (I’m having flashbacks), it seemed downright cruel.

Please place the paper towels or dryer, and soap, for that matter, near the sink. It seems logical but I’ve been in bathrooms where the sink and the towels or dryer are on opposite sides of the room. Annoying for someone in a walker. Borderline insulting for someone in a wheelchair.

Those safety bars in the stalls help a lot when they are right on the wall beside you. (My favorite are the ones on both walls.) Handicapped or infirm people really need those to sit down and get up. Some stalls I have been in have them only against the wall two feet or more away or behind the toilet itself. What’s the point? To catch me if I am catapulting to my right? Or hurling head-first into the toilet? Or are they for disabled people with freakishly long arms?

Why not install safety railings in the non-handicapped stalls? That way, if someone is in the big handicapped-accessible stall and they are, um, taking a long time, those who can collapse our walkers or are using canes can actually use another stall, knowing we’ll be able to sit and get up. 

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