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Amtrak continues station modifications as 25th anniversary of ADA marked
Very good imformation. Keep up the great work.
I would like to see more service bye Amtrak in the south, Houston,Tx. Amtrak only goes east and west not north. Why is that? And why not better times, it’s our tax money.
City of New Orleans and Silver Service travels north to South and from Texas to Chicago is north to South also but yes I see whatcha mean, . In the old days it was about “travel west young man” thats what the railroads mostly did, exception midwest and eastern U.S. It went everywhere.
It’s more than about time Amtrak became fully accessible. There is no excuse for this not being funded and implemented 25 years after the law was passed. Significant disability is one accident, one gene sequence, one disease away for everyone. Disability access is access for all, and access is everyone’s right.
For most US communities, passenger train service is accessible to NOBODY, since it doesn’t run. We must make sure that ADA requirements are not required to be over-built (for example full length platforms at stations where only one door opens) so as not to make expanding service prohibitively expensive.
The ADA does not apply to railroads, they fall under a separate statute. Regardless, increased accessibility is a good thing as at some point we’ll all need it in some way.
However, stations owned by others but served by Amtrak are subject to the ADA.
As the husband of a wheelchair user who visit the US for our main vacation, the USA’s attitude to accessibility is one of the reasons we keep coming back. The UK is getting better but still lags behind in some areas, though rail travel is much improved.
Our trip from LA to Winslow on the Chief using the handicapped sleeper was amazing - and cheap!
My wife regarded my initial attempts to access the top bunk one of the trip’s highlights.