English People’s Daily reports Beijing Paralympic organizers are striving to make the city handicap “friendly” by installing barrier-free facilities in buses, taxis, subway stations, shopping malls and hotels.
More than 600 Paralympic vehicles are now handicap friendly, and 2,000 low-chassis barrier-free buses were purchased and are now operational. At least one exit of each subway station, 123 in all, is equipped with facilities to lift wheelchairs, and staff have been trained to assist disabled passengers.
Also 70 specially designed taxis with interiors large enough to hold a wheelchair were operational as of Monday, while parking lots exclusively for the disabled have been planned along the 39 trunk roads.
One hundred and eighty eight barrier-free rooms are being offered at 16 hotels serving the Paralympics. The hotels have undergone renovations to remove any barriers to the handicapped in guest rooms, elevators and bathrooms.
Beijing tourist attractions have also been made accessible to the disabled.
The city’s 235 large and medium-sized shopping centres are also accessible with barrier-free facilities such as wheelchair ramps and signs in Braille.
Tang Xiaoquan, Executive Vice President of Beijing 208, said the barrier-free facilities were not only for the Paralympics. He said, “we mean to get the city’s nearly one million handicapped population more involved in public life”.
