When molehills become mountains

KATE GOLDEN/Frontiersman reporter

PALMER - Jessie De Vries knew she had to go over the tracks backwards, with the back wheels first, and fast, so the front wheels wouldn't have time to get caught. The sidewalk going down the other side looked like the Grand Canyon, and she'd be approaching it looking over her shoulder.

She almost made it. But then there she was, one whole side of the wheelchair dangling over the curb into space, about to bite it.

Two passers-by rescued her. When she got to her pinochle group at the hotel, she was still shaking. It was the last time De Vries would attempt to maneuver the Palmer railroad tracks alone.

"It's very, very difficult for any of us in wheelchairs to get across the railroad tracks and do any shopping," she said, and that's in the summer. The only safe crossing is at the Old Glenn Highway, which is "quite a journey," she said. In the winter, though, don't even think about it.

De Vries, 84, has been in a wheelchair for the last five years. She's energetic and overcommitted, as she always has been, but she can't get from the Palmer Pioneers' Home to downtown by herself.

A treacherous winter

Mat-Su Services for Children and Adults provides assisted living for some disabled people. Rod Adams, the supported-living department manager, said that this year has been worse than usual.

"Being on the road with crutches, this year you might find that you have some hard times," he said. "We've had a couple falls."

Yet those slipping on the ice weren't clients. They were service providers. Imagine, he said, what it must be like without the able body.

Sidewalks and doors

De Vries registers details of Palmer most people don't: big cracks in the sidewalk, for example, or whether doors open outward or inward. There's a store with a step on the door; she can't enter without help.

"You couldn't get up there unless you do a wheelie, and I'm not a wheelie type of person," she said.

There are also good spots. The library and the Mat-Su Borough administration building have buttons that open the doors automatically, for example. Downtown, the sidewalks are a foot broader and therefore much easier to negotiate. Her church, United Presbyterian Church, has a heated ramp that stays ice-free. The Pioneers' Home front door is too heavy, but the sidewalk in front is terrific.

Sidewalks are particularly bad in the historic district, she said. With cracks like abysses made to eat wheelchair front wheels, slanted concrete that can tip her off balance, or narrow walks with tight turns to even narrower ramps, sometimes she just opts for the street.

And in the winter, she said, "I do not go on the sidewalks."

In Palmer, it works all right, she said.

"People are good here, in the cars. Courteous."

She has strategies for difficult patches. For instance, she has a system for getting through outward-opening doors - as long as she's in a nonmotorized wheelchair, which is much more maneuverable, though more energy-taxing than her current throne.

But what if she didn't? What about those who don't have the sturdy arms and coordination to park precisely to the left of the door, open it just wide enough, and quickly roll the whole chair-and-self in, one-handed? How would they, for instance, get their mail at the post office?

The point is moot for De Vries herself.

"I haven't been that far," she said.

Extreme walking

With four wheels and traction, De Vries has it easy compared to those locomoting with a walker.

"I'm afraid if I go up one side," Evelyn Mattie said of the railroad hump, "I'll go down the other."

For Mattie, too, the railroad crossing is first on the list of places to avoid.

Despite relying on a walker for the last year and a half, she's an independent traveler when weather permits.

Her map of details, too, has changed since she got the walker. She goes down the middle of the street, avoiding the sidewalks, with their insurmountable curbs or steep ramps. She's learned to avoid slippery snow compacted by cars or the ice that forms under rooflines.

And why, she asked, is there no pedestrian shortcut between the post office and the grocery store?

"I see footprints, but when you've got a walker, it's not the same."

Accessibility: Whose responsibility?

Those heading to their cars from the city council meeting last Tuesday found a rear parking lot of pure ice.

"Watch out!" they yelled helpfully to each other.

De Vries hasn't been to city hall since last year, when she came to ask whose responsibility sidewalk maintenance is.

The answer: Property owners, not the city, are so obliged. The city, although its first priority is to keep roads clear, will plow and grate sidewalks when time allows.

Parking lots of public buildings get the standard sand-and-salt mixture. The "thaw-freeze, thaw-freeze" cycle makes it hard to keep up, though, public-works employee Jerry Rowland said.

Greg Wickham, public works superintendent, said all new roads are designed with accessibility in mind, allowing for wheelchair ramps, for example.

As for buildings, the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, which took effect in 1992, mandates accessibility, as long as such modifications don't cost more than 20 percent more than the inaccessible version.

Pre-ADA "public accommodations," like restaurants, stores, doctor's offices and private schools, are grandfathered in.

Public entities, however, including those who operate state and local government buildings, must actively make sure disabled people can access them, whether they're old or new buildings.

Who regulates compliance with ADA regulations?

Other than egregious violations, for which there are lawsuits, disabled people and their advocates are the main police. Joseph Bowens, operations manager for the Palmer Senior Center, said that after his client was trapped in a Valley Hospital bathroom, he complained. Two weeks later, there were automatically opening doors in all the hospital bathrooms, he said.

As far as lawsuits go, rumor has it there's a disabled lawyer who walks around town looking for noncompliant businesses.

Bogeymen aside, Palmer building inspector David Meneses said the job goes to Access Alaska, a nonprofit organization with an ADA Partners Project, to facilitate compliance.

But Meneses added that most of the time, businesses regulate themselves.

"Most of the businessmen are looking to get every dollar they can," Meneses said. That is, if disabled people can't get in, they won't shop there.

De Vries noted there are shops she can't enter without help. All they have to do, she wants to tell them, is add a doorbell.

And as for the tracks

New track construction has clearly spelled-out requirements: for examples, sidewalks going over rail crossings, and detectable warnings for oncoming pedestrians and traffic, similar to new requirements for streets, according to Alaska Railroad facility manager Brett Flint. Since the railroad runs both freight and passenger services, it falls under "broad exemptions" for disability requirements. It does, however, provide "equivalent accommodation" on a case-by-case basis, he said.

Old tracks such as Palmer's, however, are grandfathered in.

Railroad engineer Tom Brooks said it would be the city's responsibility to put in a crossing if it wanted one, and it would have to get the relevant permits from the railroad.

Flint pointed out that ADA is enforced by complaint, not police. If the wheelchair- and walker-bound make a ruckus, he said, they'd probably do something about it.

"We like to be good neighbors; what has to happen is that the need has to be raised," he said.

Perhaps there's some technological solution to the ankle-twisting and wheel-swallowing flangeways?

Not yet, said Brooks. "There's a national issue about that. Nobody has found a solution to it. The way railroads work, we've got to have that gap inside the ball."

Solutions a-plenty

The main solution to icy sidewalks, many said, is to stay home. Which is not outside the purview of more able-bodied people.

"There have been some days that have been scary," Palmer Senior Center President Ken Anderson said, even for the drivers.

The Palmer Senior Center serves 80 meals a day at its facility, and delivers around 250 a day to seniors in the area, a sort of mini-Meals on Wheels.

And Evelyn Mattie said that despite the ice, it's actually easy for her to get around. The Senior Center and others drive her wherever she needs to go.

"If I ask for a ride, I usually get it," she said.

Four wheels and smokin'

What do you do when there's no ride?

Election Day 2004 saw snowfall in Palmer, but the Palmer Pioneers' Home vans were down for maintenance. How was a good senior citizen to do her civic duty?

De Vries and three other wheelchair-bound residents took matters into their own hands. They bundled up, headed out into the snowstorm, each with a walking companion, and rolled down the middle of the street to the borough building.

Forty minutes' travel time: No sweat, De Vries said.

Still, the railroad tracks loom. She'd like to get across those tracks to get a cup of coffee or a new book on her own sometime.

"Just because we are old doesn't mean our interests are any different," she said.