9 ms·

Wheelmap.org - A map of wheelchair accessible places

228 points by l1am0 6y ago

giuliomagnifico 6y ago
I’m a sporty guy, but 8/9 years ago I broken both my legs and used a wheelchair for more than 2 months. Only when you try what this mean you can understand the difficulty! And every new initiative like this website, is a great thing.
- matsemann 6y ago
  Not nearly the same; But at university I was one of those guys driving around on an Airwheel. Every little curb was sooo annoying, and I could just jump off, walk over and continue my ride. Sometimes I would do quite some detours to avoid that. Made me realize how annyoing going around on campus in a wheelchair must have been.
  - Moru 6y ago
    As a summer-job 30 years ago I was working with moving stuff around the university. We had wagons to drag the stuff around everywhere. Everything was very accessible, you can even get between the buildings without stepping outside thanks to tunnels above or below ground. Elevators or long slopes where there is need. The local university is a relatively new one, about 55 years old so I guess it was planned from the beginning.
mikece 6y ago
Any public business has to be wheelchair accessible in the US, otherwise the business faces being sued under the ADA. Is there no equivalent law in the EU?
- varjag 6y ago
  Any new construction or substantial renovation has to be wheelchair accessible in the EU. There are exceptions for historic sites I believe.
- lawtalkinghuman 6y ago
  A lot of disability discrimination is handled at a national rather than EU level, because EU law is pretty narrowly constrained by the treaties and the purpose of the EU. In the UK, there's a "duty to make reasonable adjustments" if "a provision, criterion or practice [...] puts a disabled person at a substantial disadvantage" (s20 Equality Act 2010). But there's quite a wide margin when it comes to what is or isn't a "reasonable" adjustment. Lots of historic buildings are never going to be fully accessible without a massive rebuild project. The cost of retrofitting, say, the London Underground to be fully wheelchair accessible would easily reach into the tens of billions. (New capital projects tend to have accessibility baked in—so the DLR, built in the 80s, is extremely accessible, as is the renovated bits of the Jubilee Line, and Crossrail will be.) The "reasonable adjustments" don't necessarily need to be providing physical access adjustments like ramps/lifts. For instance, when I was in university, one of the students on my course was in a wheelchair, and they relocated all lectures, tutorials and seminars he was in to ensure they were all in the rooms that were wheelchair accessible. There is some EU legislation that tries to unify accessibility rules across the different countries though. https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1202 https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1202
  - sonicggg 6y ago
    "reasonable adjustments" I hate these subjective laws, it's wide open for manipulation of whoever has the bigger stick. As harsh as it may sound, they should state that every building, no matter how old, needs to be accessible.
    - lawtalkinghuman 6y ago
      There's ways for the government to specify in more detail what does and does not amount to a reasonable adjustment through secondary legislation covering specific industries, building regulations, and so on. Almost all the most important laws have some subjectivity and interpretation built into them. If they didn't, we'd get conceptual clarity at the cost of some pretty horrible injustices.
- lucb1e 6y ago
  What's a public business? You don't mean publicly traded companies right?
  - readarticle 6y ago
    They meant “public accommodation”. Essentially any place in America that’s not a church or members’ club, regardless of whether the ownership is private, public, or government.
    - lucb1e 6y ago
      Okay, thanks!
- detaro 6y ago
  Isn't that in the US also tied to a minimum employee count?
- voltagex_ 6y ago
  I'm not American, but follow a few people on Twitter and you'll see the ADA leaves a lot to be desired.
zeristor 6y ago
It is quite apparent how poor access for wheel chairs is in central London since it is so rare to see anyone using a wheelchair around the streets. This was all the more apparent with when the Paralympics was on in London and I’d see far more wheelchairs users emboldened to be out and about. I’d like to see them feel at ease all of the time. It takes a really dogged personality for someone to commute into London via the accessible stations. When (if) Crossrail opens I trust access will be easier. For some reason I feel quite strongly about this.
- berkes 6y ago
  I can imagine this even has an amplifying effect. As the reasoning of e.g. a shopkeeper, or pub-owner now is "there are hardly any wheelchairs about, so why bother investing in a ramp/accessible utilities etc".
andix 6y ago
We used to do pub crawls where we were only allowed to go to not yet tagged places and tag them. We managed to do around 20 places an evening with a few people (we split up some times). Nice and fun activity to help people. Before Corona at least...
- Vinnl 6y ago
  That's a brilliant idea. I wonder if I can convince people to join me on that, if pubs ever re-open.
- holgerd 6y ago
  We found that "mapping events" as we call it are a very suitable group activity with social distancing. The virtual event connects the people who go out separately to map the accessibility of places.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Vinnl 6y ago
I just happened to have discovered this website last week as well after sharing data on whether places I visited are wheelchair accessible as well using https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete. I'd highly recommend everyone with an Android device to install that app. And if you're in e.g. a restaurant, take a look around, whip out StreetComplete, and mark the place as wheelchair accessible or not.
- notRobot 6y ago
  That's awesome! Just installed :)
- Moru 6y ago
  I love StreetComplete but I wish it was faster at discovering nearby quests, it can take many minutes if you are in a new area and have many quest types active.
  - myself248 6y ago
    Westnordost has been actively working on this the last few days, and talking about it in the OSMUS Slack. The query times are down to a fraction of what they've been, so assuming it all scales well, I'd expect the changes to be in a new version of StreetComplete very soon.
    - matkoniecz 6y ago
      To be more specific, works happens in https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete/pull/1901 https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete/pull/1901
- holgerd 6y ago
  Yes, these contributions will show up on Wheelmap as well, thanks!
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  Note that wheelchair quests are disabled by default, you need to go into settings to enable them.
jarofgreen 6y ago
Just wanted to highlight from the FAQ: Who owns the map's data? Wheelmap is based largely on the free world map OpenStreetMap which stores all the data. The data sets are published under the Open Database License (ODbL) and are available to everyone and can be used free of charge. On the service https://www.accessibility.cloud/ https://www.accessibility.cloud/ , which is the technical backend of Wheelmap.org, more data is shown, provided by partners with varying licences. Sozialhelden e.V. merely incorporates this data into the map. It's really good to see a project like this open up it's data for sharing and re-use.
- hk__2 6y ago
  > It's really good to see a project like this open up it's data for sharing and re-use. Wheelmap mostly a front for OpenStreetMap; it doesn’t own any data.
  - jarofgreen 6y ago
    Many community mapping projects have a big button saying "Add information" - like this one does - but not many make sure the data goes somewhere Open. So credit to the creators.
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  And if someone want to contribute to OpenStreetMap then https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete is likely a good fit (if you are interested in wheechair quests - you need to enable them in settings)
holgerd 6y ago
Co-founder of Wheelmap here. Great to see it mentioned! Wheelmap is 10 years old this year and has 1 Million places from OSM (and synced back) and 1.3 million places from ca 130 other sources which we aggregated as one API for others to use as well. You can find more info on https://www.accessibility.cloud/ https://www.accessibility.cloud/. We also try to standardize accessibility data on https://a11yjson.org https://a11yjson.org and https://www.w3.org/community/lda/ https://www.w3.org/community/lda/ Happy to answer any questions (but have bad internet connectivity for the next few hours)
- paledot 6y ago
  No question, just thank you! As I'm sure you know, the stress of not knowing if you'll be able to get in the front door of a restaurant or to get to the bathroom until you've already arrived is substantial - and everpresent. It is disappointing that services like Wheelmap are needed, but they absolutely are and I'm glad it's there.
  - holgerd 6y ago
    You are right. Thank you!
  - Moru 6y ago
    It's very sad that such a page is needed. In some parts of the world it's not though. When we rebuilt the store I was working at 20 years ago, it wasn't even a discussion about it. Ofcourse there was a ramp to the entrance and wheelchair accessible toilet. Did a fast look around now and apparently we (Sweden) have a new law about discrimination since 2015. Stores and restaurants can't discriminate against people with different problems, they need to take resonable steps to make sure their customers has access. For example ramps up to the entrance, toilets accessible, moving smelly products to well ventilated areas and so on. This last one surpriced me though as an allergic person. Will have to talk to some stores that is spewing their perfumes around the whole shopping mall...
    - paledot 6y ago
robmiller 6y ago
I work on architectural design teams around the US and wanted to let everyone know that the ADA Act compels us to think deeply and equitably about accessibility in our buildings, practically as much as fire design. Often renovations are deemed too costly or scaled back in scope when considering what is required for accessibility. A newer requirement for ADA is in live music venues where patrons are expected to be standing during the performance. Accommodations are to be made for wheel chairs to be elevated and able to see the performance in amongst the crowd, not relegated to a corner of the room.
amelius 6y ago
This should be in Google maps, and integrated with its navigation tools.
- matkoniecz 6y ago
  Note that this is OpenStreetMap data, available under open license. As soon as Google complies with https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright they can integrate it.
- AlexTrask 6y ago
  Google made an ad for Google Chrome https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EulA50zMWj4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EulA50zMWj4
asplake 6y ago
My daughter needs a hoist and we’ve used https://www.uktoiletmap.org/ https://www.uktoiletmap.org/
zabzonk 6y ago
Just to point out (as a mobility scooter user) that it's not simply building accessibility that is an issue, but also the presence of drop-kerbs on sidewalks so you can get across roads; though cataloguing all of those would be a real headache, but I do spend a lot of time getting stuck when my usual route is closed for things like tree-felling, and the other side of the road is not accessible.
- Carnildo 6y ago
  OpenStreetMap's working on mapping those, though as you expected, it's taking a while.
panoramas4good 6y ago
Amazing. I am ashamed to say, but I was somewhat ignorant to issues of accessibility, and not just for those in wheelchairs. A partially sighted friend asked me; "do you think I'd be able to walk that trail?" Despite it being somewhat technical, I didn't fully grasp his limitations. Long story short, it was a bit of a disaster when we tried it together. We're in the middle of working on projects using panoramic imagery + computer vision + OSM to grade UK trails and their accessibility. The idea being show, don't tell. I'm going to send an email via your contact form. I would really appreciate the opportunity to ask you a few questions.
- holgerd 6y ago
  sure, please contact me and my team here: https://news.wheelmap.org/en/contact/ https://news.wheelmap.org/en/contact/
- bluGill 6y ago
  It gets hard quick to answer these questions because each disability is unique. I once knew a woman get out of her wheelchair and walk up 3 stairs. She needed help to make that walk but she was able to do it (don't tell her doctor) . Others could not do that walk at all.
  - voltagex_ 6y ago
    A term I've used is "ambulatory wheelchair user" - there are lots of us! I think it's more important to have the information available. I might not go to a place with a step at the entrance by myself but if I have people with me I can decide that I'll risk it.
  - curryst 6y ago
    Even beyond being unique, disabilities are usually designated with cliffs rather than a gradient. People with an ambulatory disability are lumped in as "can walk with cane", "can walk with walker", or "cannot walk, must use wheelchair" ignoring the fact that some people exist on boundaries, or might oscillate between two depending on what they're doing or how they're feeling. It seems like it would be nice to have a better classification system for the challenges a particular terrain poses. While having videos to see what the trail looks like is definitely a step up, it seems like a pain in the ass to have to watch someone walk it (and it would ruin a bit of the wonder for me, personally). I wonder if it's possible to condense the terrain down to a series of "potentially problematic features". I'm not an expert in accessibility, so I don't know what exactly one would flag, but things that come to mind would be rough terrain (inaccessible by typical wheelchair, accessible by ruggedized wheelchair), rough terrain (inaccessible by any wheelchair), non-smooth terrain (debris on trail could trip someone, accessible by any wheelchair), gradient in excess of X%, whether the trail is shared with bicyclists, etc. I do worry about the data the operator would have access to, though. And even if we assume the operator is above reproach, I would worry that hackers would get access to the data. It's not something that I would want to host personally, just because of the risk of causing harm if the data were to be stolen.

228 points by l1am0 6y ago

I’m a sporty guy, but 8/9 years ago I broken both my legs and used a wheelchair for more than 2 months. Only when you try what this mean you can understand the difficulty! And every new initiative like this website, is a great thing.

matsemann 6y ago
Not nearly the same; But at university I was one of those guys driving around on an Airwheel. Every little curb was sooo annoying, and I could just jump off, walk over and continue my ride. Sometimes I would do quite some detours to avoid that. Made me realize how annyoing going around on campus in a wheelchair must have been.
- Moru 6y ago
  As a summer-job 30 years ago I was working with moving stuff around the university. We had wagons to drag the stuff around everywhere. Everything was very accessible, you can even get between the buildings without stepping outside thanks to tunnels above or below ground. Elevators or long slopes where there is need. The local university is a relatively new one, about 55 years old so I guess it was planned from the beginning.

mikece 6y ago

Any public business has to be wheelchair accessible in the US, otherwise the business faces being sued under the ADA. Is there no equivalent law in the EU?

varjag 6y ago
Any new construction or substantial renovation has to be wheelchair accessible in the EU. There are exceptions for historic sites I believe.
lawtalkinghuman 6y ago
A lot of disability discrimination is handled at a national rather than EU level, because EU law is pretty narrowly constrained by the treaties and the purpose of the EU. In the UK, there's a "duty to make reasonable adjustments" if "a provision, criterion or practice [...] puts a disabled person at a substantial disadvantage" (s20 Equality Act 2010). But there's quite a wide margin when it comes to what is or isn't a "reasonable" adjustment. Lots of historic buildings are never going to be fully accessible without a massive rebuild project. The cost of retrofitting, say, the London Underground to be fully wheelchair accessible would easily reach into the tens of billions. (New capital projects tend to have accessibility baked in—so the DLR, built in the 80s, is extremely accessible, as is the renovated bits of the Jubilee Line, and Crossrail will be.) The "reasonable adjustments" don't necessarily need to be providing physical access adjustments like ramps/lifts. For instance, when I was in university, one of the students on my course was in a wheelchair, and they relocated all lectures, tutorials and seminars he was in to ensure they were all in the rooms that were wheelchair accessible. There is some EU legislation that tries to unify accessibility rules across the different countries though. https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1202 https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1202
- sonicggg 6y ago
  "reasonable adjustments" I hate these subjective laws, it's wide open for manipulation of whoever has the bigger stick. As harsh as it may sound, they should state that every building, no matter how old, needs to be accessible.
  - lawtalkinghuman 6y ago
    There's ways for the government to specify in more detail what does and does not amount to a reasonable adjustment through secondary legislation covering specific industries, building regulations, and so on. Almost all the most important laws have some subjectivity and interpretation built into them. If they didn't, we'd get conceptual clarity at the cost of some pretty horrible injustices.
lucb1e 6y ago
What's a public business? You don't mean publicly traded companies right?
- readarticle 6y ago
  They meant “public accommodation”. Essentially any place in America that’s not a church or members’ club, regardless of whether the ownership is private, public, or government.
  - lucb1e 6y ago
    Okay, thanks!
detaro 6y ago
Isn't that in the US also tied to a minimum employee count?
voltagex_ 6y ago
I'm not American, but follow a few people on Twitter and you'll see the ADA leaves a lot to be desired.

zeristor 6y ago

It is quite apparent how poor access for wheel chairs is in central London since it is so rare to see anyone using a wheelchair around the streets. This was all the more apparent with when the Paralympics was on in London and I’d see far more wheelchairs users emboldened to be out and about. I’d like to see them feel at ease all of the time. It takes a really dogged personality for someone to commute into London via the accessible stations. When (if) Crossrail opens I trust access will be easier. For some reason I feel quite strongly about this.

berkes 6y ago
I can imagine this even has an amplifying effect. As the reasoning of e.g. a shopkeeper, or pub-owner now is "there are hardly any wheelchairs about, so why bother investing in a ramp/accessible utilities etc".

andix 6y ago

We used to do pub crawls where we were only allowed to go to not yet tagged places and tag them. We managed to do around 20 places an evening with a few people (we split up some times). Nice and fun activity to help people. Before Corona at least...

Vinnl 6y ago
That's a brilliant idea. I wonder if I can convince people to join me on that, if pubs ever re-open.
holgerd 6y ago
We found that "mapping events" as we call it are a very suitable group activity with social distancing. The virtual event connects the people who go out separately to map the accessibility of places.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Vinnl 6y ago

I just happened to have discovered this website last week as well after sharing data on whether places I visited are wheelchair accessible as well using https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete. I'd highly recommend everyone with an Android device to install that app. And if you're in e.g. a restaurant, take a look around, whip out StreetComplete, and mark the place as wheelchair accessible or not.

notRobot 6y ago
That's awesome! Just installed :)
Moru 6y ago
I love StreetComplete but I wish it was faster at discovering nearby quests, it can take many minutes if you are in a new area and have many quest types active.
- myself248 6y ago
  Westnordost has been actively working on this the last few days, and talking about it in the OSMUS Slack. The query times are down to a fraction of what they've been, so assuming it all scales well, I'd expect the changes to be in a new version of StreetComplete very soon.
  - matkoniecz 6y ago
    To be more specific, works happens in https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete/pull/1901 https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete/pull/1901
holgerd 6y ago
Yes, these contributions will show up on Wheelmap as well, thanks!
matkoniecz 6y ago
Note that wheelchair quests are disabled by default, you need to go into settings to enable them.

jarofgreen 6y ago

Just wanted to highlight from the FAQ: Who owns the map's data? Wheelmap is based largely on the free world map OpenStreetMap which stores all the data. The data sets are published under the Open Database License (ODbL) and are available to everyone and can be used free of charge. On the service https://www.accessibility.cloud/ https://www.accessibility.cloud/ , which is the technical backend of Wheelmap.org, more data is shown, provided by partners with varying licences. Sozialhelden e.V. merely incorporates this data into the map. It's really good to see a project like this open up it's data for sharing and re-use.

hk__2 6y ago
> It's really good to see a project like this open up it's data for sharing and re-use. Wheelmap mostly a front for OpenStreetMap; it doesn’t own any data.
- jarofgreen 6y ago
  Many community mapping projects have a big button saying "Add information" - like this one does - but not many make sure the data goes somewhere Open. So credit to the creators.
matkoniecz 6y ago
And if someone want to contribute to OpenStreetMap then https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete https://github.com/westnordost/StreetComplete is likely a good fit (if you are interested in wheechair quests - you need to enable them in settings)

holgerd 6y ago

Co-founder of Wheelmap here. Great to see it mentioned! Wheelmap is 10 years old this year and has 1 Million places from OSM (and synced back) and 1.3 million places from ca 130 other sources which we aggregated as one API for others to use as well. You can find more info on https://www.accessibility.cloud/ https://www.accessibility.cloud/. We also try to standardize accessibility data on https://a11yjson.org https://a11yjson.org and https://www.w3.org/community/lda/ https://www.w3.org/community/lda/ Happy to answer any questions (but have bad internet connectivity for the next few hours)

paledot 6y ago
No question, just thank you! As I'm sure you know, the stress of not knowing if you'll be able to get in the front door of a restaurant or to get to the bathroom until you've already arrived is substantial - and everpresent. It is disappointing that services like Wheelmap are needed, but they absolutely are and I'm glad it's there.
- holgerd 6y ago
  You are right. Thank you!
- Moru 6y ago
  It's very sad that such a page is needed. In some parts of the world it's not though. When we rebuilt the store I was working at 20 years ago, it wasn't even a discussion about it. Ofcourse there was a ramp to the entrance and wheelchair accessible toilet. Did a fast look around now and apparently we (Sweden) have a new law about discrimination since 2015. Stores and restaurants can't discriminate against people with different problems, they need to take resonable steps to make sure their customers has access. For example ramps up to the entrance, toilets accessible, moving smelly products to well ventilated areas and so on. This last one surpriced me though as an allergic person. Will have to talk to some stores that is spewing their perfumes around the whole shopping mall...
  - paledot 6y ago

robmiller 6y ago

I work on architectural design teams around the US and wanted to let everyone know that the ADA Act compels us to think deeply and equitably about accessibility in our buildings, practically as much as fire design. Often renovations are deemed too costly or scaled back in scope when considering what is required for accessibility. A newer requirement for ADA is in live music venues where patrons are expected to be standing during the performance. Accommodations are to be made for wheel chairs to be elevated and able to see the performance in amongst the crowd, not relegated to a corner of the room.

amelius 6y ago

This should be in Google maps, and integrated with its navigation tools.

matkoniecz 6y ago
Note that this is OpenStreetMap data, available under open license. As soon as Google complies with https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright they can integrate it.
AlexTrask 6y ago
Google made an ad for Google Chrome https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EulA50zMWj4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EulA50zMWj4

asplake 6y ago

My daughter needs a hoist and we’ve used https://www.uktoiletmap.org/ https://www.uktoiletmap.org/

zabzonk 6y ago

Just to point out (as a mobility scooter user) that it's not simply building accessibility that is an issue, but also the presence of drop-kerbs on sidewalks so you can get across roads; though cataloguing all of those would be a real headache, but I do spend a lot of time getting stuck when my usual route is closed for things like tree-felling, and the other side of the road is not accessible.

Carnildo 6y ago
OpenStreetMap's working on mapping those, though as you expected, it's taking a while.

panoramas4good 6y ago

Amazing. I am ashamed to say, but I was somewhat ignorant to issues of accessibility, and not just for those in wheelchairs. A partially sighted friend asked me; "do you think I'd be able to walk that trail?" Despite it being somewhat technical, I didn't fully grasp his limitations. Long story short, it was a bit of a disaster when we tried it together. We're in the middle of working on projects using panoramic imagery + computer vision + OSM to grade UK trails and their accessibility. The idea being show, don't tell. I'm going to send an email via your contact form. I would really appreciate the opportunity to ask you a few questions.

holgerd 6y ago
sure, please contact me and my team here: https://news.wheelmap.org/en/contact/ https://news.wheelmap.org/en/contact/
bluGill 6y ago
It gets hard quick to answer these questions because each disability is unique. I once knew a woman get out of her wheelchair and walk up 3 stairs. She needed help to make that walk but she was able to do it (don't tell her doctor) . Others could not do that walk at all.
- voltagex_ 6y ago
  A term I've used is "ambulatory wheelchair user" - there are lots of us! I think it's more important to have the information available. I might not go to a place with a step at the entrance by myself but if I have people with me I can decide that I'll risk it.
- curryst 6y ago
  Even beyond being unique, disabilities are usually designated with cliffs rather than a gradient. People with an ambulatory disability are lumped in as "can walk with cane", "can walk with walker", or "cannot walk, must use wheelchair" ignoring the fact that some people exist on boundaries, or might oscillate between two depending on what they're doing or how they're feeling. It seems like it would be nice to have a better classification system for the challenges a particular terrain poses. While having videos to see what the trail looks like is definitely a step up, it seems like a pain in the ass to have to watch someone walk it (and it would ruin a bit of the wonder for me, personally). I wonder if it's possible to condense the terrain down to a series of "potentially problematic features". I'm not an expert in accessibility, so I don't know what exactly one would flag, but things that come to mind would be rough terrain (inaccessible by typical wheelchair, accessible by ruggedized wheelchair), rough terrain (inaccessible by any wheelchair), non-smooth terrain (debris on trail could trip someone, accessible by any wheelchair), gradient in excess of X%, whether the trail is shared with bicyclists, etc. I do worry about the data the operator would have access to, though. And even if we assume the operator is above reproach, I would worry that hackers would get access to the data. It's not something that I would want to host personally, just because of the risk of causing harm if the data were to be stolen.