Wheelchair advocate claims Statue of Liberty ferry violates disabilities law
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, January 4, 2016, 4:00 AM
The United Spinal Association slammed Statue Cruises, which shuttles millions of tourists to Liberty and Ellis islands each year, for failing to live up to the Americans With Disabilities Act, the landmark anti-discrimination law.
In a letter to the National Park Service, which gave Statue Cruises a 10-year contract to operate ferry services in 2008, Jim Weisman, president of the United Spinal Association, calls the accommodations “dangerous and inaccessible.”
He complained about the “unlawful” slope of gangplanks, unstable platform pieces and inaccessible rest rooms.
You don’t want anybody to get hurt, and if they just obeyed regulations that wouldn’t happen,” Weisman told the Daily News. “And it would encourage wheelchair users to visit with their families.”
The United Spinal Association took video of staffer David Heard’s haphazard boarding of a ferry last month — with the crew using makeshift wooden planks to get his 350-pound motorized wheelchair onto the gangway.
Inside the vessel, there was no place to secure Heard’s wheelchair as the ferry sailed through the choppy waters of New York Harbor.
And he could forget about using a bathroom onboard, because the stalls were too tiny for anyone using a wheelchair, the video shows.
When Heard got off the boat in lower Manhattan, he had to push hard on his wheelchair’s joystick on the steep incline to avoid going “down the gangplank like a bowling ball,” he said.
“I know that some people are not as outgoing as I am (and) would not utilize it,” Heard said of the ferry service. “They should be able to.”
“Someone else is going to have a problem,” he added.
Heard, of Jackson Heights, Queens, has used a wheelchair since he was disabled in a 1993 diving accident. He says Statue Cruises put a crimp on his independence when three crew members had to guide him on and off the boat.
An official of Statue Cruises, whose parent company, Hornblower, is up for a contract to run the city’s five-borough ferry service, said it has never heard any objections about accessibility in its eight years of service.
“We comply with all governmental rules and regulations regarding our vessels, and we serve all passengers in a professional, courteous and respectful manner.”“Since Statue Cruises launched service in 2008, we have successfully handled an astounding 100 million ferry embarkments without a single complaint about accessibility,” Mike Burke, Statue Cruises’ chief operating officer, said.
John Piltzecker, the National Park Service’s superintendent of the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island, agreed that the boats are in “full compliance” with accessibility laws.
He said Statue Cruises had reached out to the United Spinal Association for help in training boat crew to properly aid customers with motorized or manual wheelchairs.“We welcome opportunities to have a constructive dialogue with those who can offer suggestions for even better accessibility for our visitors,” Piltzecker said.
But Weisman said he heard complaints from his group’s members, which prompted the shooting of the video and letter to Statue Cruises.
“Something like the Statue of Liberty that’s the symbol of the country has to be accessible to everyone,” Weisman said.
Tags: Dan Rivoli, JEFFERSON SIEGEL/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS,,David Heard, United Spinal Association
