Last week, Sandy and I ate dinner at a nearby burger joint. They have great burgers, but the restaurant is very small having only a bar, six or seven booths, and only six tables that seat four. We arrived at 5:30 pm on a Friday, and found every booth and every table were occupied. We knew we were in for lengthy wait causing my level of anxiety to heighten more than it was already.
My anxiety was already heightened because of our struggle with parking our wheelchair van. Directly in front of the restaurant entrance is a single handicap parking spot. On the left side of it is the restaurant’s outdoor patio. On the right side, is the concrete ramp that runs the entire length of the parking spot ending at the sidewalk. Between the ramp and the parking space, a curb also ran the length of the parking space.
When we arrived at the restaurant, that handicap spot was vacant. We pulled in, parking as far to the left as possible. I extended the van’s wheelchair ramp from the van’s right side. When completely extended the end of the ramp was only six inches from the curb. That’s nowhere near enough room to drive off the end of the ramp and onto the concrete ramp. So parked in the space, there was no straight access to the concrete ramp to the sidewalk. The curb was in the way. I couldn’t get out of the van. The space was too narrow and the curb blocked egress from the van ramp.
So, I retracted the ramp, we backed out of the space far enough that I could see when the ramp was even with the end of the concrete ramp. The van ramp was extended, and I was able to drive my wheelchair down the ramp on to the concrete ramp and on to the sidewalk. But when we backed partially out of the space, most of the van was sitting in the middle of the driveway blocking incoming and exiting traffic, a hazard waiting to happen. I exited the van, and we pulled forward and parked.
By then I was very upset. This poorly-designed handicap parking spot was unusable for a wheelchair. This was the worst, most frustrating disabled handicap parking spot I had ever seen. It is unusable. The curb separating the ramp from the parking space is a barrier and needs to be removed. Until the curb is removed and the space widened, many other disabled people will have the same problem, and they, too, will have anxiety levels heightened before they ever enter the restaurant.
