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Comment by swebs | Hacker News Reader

>In much of the world accessibility is a legal requirement

This is very true for the USA, but not so much elsewhere. It's common in Europe for buildings to have no wheelchair access at all.

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Much of this is thanks to the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) which will celebrate it's 30th anniversary next year. I can remember how much people despised that the government was forcing another regulation on the poor businesses and how the world was going to come crashing down as a result. But here we are with at least a mediocre of accessibility and much of it can be traced back to the ADA.

> But here we are with at least a mediocre of accessibility and much of it can be traced back to the ADA.

While the accessibility may be mediocre, we do have a modicum of it.

It's a requirement for new buildings. It just happens that a lot of European buildings are very old and difficult to modify.

Going between Stockholm University and the Royal Institute of Technology the elevators were out for a few months straight.

Wheelchair users were suggested to go from nearby stations, which in the case of Stockholm Uni is 1.9 km with roller coaster like hills from the previous and even further with a wild downhill along the highway for the next one.

In Holland, it seems like a lot of effort is put into wheelchair access. At least for newer buildings (Post WW2) and public transportation. But I'm not physically disabled, so haven't actually experienced it fully.

I was surprised that in NYC not all stations and platform have wheelchair access.

That's something I've noticed living in a major Northern European Capital. As result, I don't interact with disabled people nearly as often as I used to in the USA.

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