Elaine Dallaire, 69, was born with brittle bone disease and needs to go to Manchester’s YMCA almost every day to swim and do therapy. But the Y sits at the top of a hill, and there aren’t a lot of parking spaces nearby. When it snows, the hill is icy, making it hard for Dallaire to get to the top.
Dallaire said she has asked the city for repairs to the sidewalk and snow removal, but has been unsuccessful so far.
“We are not just inconvenience,” she said at a Board of Mayor and Alderman last Tuesday. “We carry the burden of navigating environments that are actively hostile towards us.”
Like Dallaire, about half a dozen Manchester residents and disability advocates spoke at the meeting.
Residents are asking for better sidewalk maintenance, on time snow removal and repairs to sidewalks that are broken or uneven. They also asked for more accessible parking spaces and better parking enforcement to keep handicap spaces open.
“What we are seeing is a gap between compliance on paper and usability in practice,” said Amber Nicole Canaan, one of the city’s public works commissioners. “They're very solvable problems, and addressing them will make Manchester more accessible for everyone”
That’s what Cyprus Hall is hoping for. He said he is a lifelong non-driver – partly due to preference, and partly because of a neurological disability. He uses a small cart to carry around what he needs, but often has trouble because of the state of the sidewalks. In the winter, he had to close his business a few times because of a lack of snow removal.
“A functional city needs safe sidewalks and crossings – needs disabled access,” Hall said. “It is so fundamental and so basic and so obvious that it is shameful we haven't done more already. I know that we can do better.”
