Taipei City councilors yesterday called on the city government to improve the city's automatic teller machines (ATMs) and restrooms as soon as possible to make the city more handicap-friendly.
Leading a group of handicapped people, reporters and city officials to inspect the ATMs and restrooms installed at Taipei City Hall, DPP city councilors Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康), Lee Chien-chang (李建昌), Chiang Kai-shih (江蓋世), and Tsai Chiu-huang (蔡秋凰) yesterday said that the city should play a leading role in improving such facilities.
"The city government has the responsibility to make a safe and friendly living environment for city residents, especially for the physically and mentally challenged," Tuan said. "But we're very disappointed to find that it's not doing a great job."
Even though Huang Chun-nan (
"I usually have to ask strangers to give me a hand, including telling them my password," he said.
The two ATMs on the second basement level of the City Hall were even worse. Huang could not even get access to the machine because of the pedestal mounted below it.
Although one of the cubicles in a male restroom on the same level was designed to be handicap-accessible, a step at its entrance again hampered Huang from entering.
"It's nothing but a fancy decoration," Chiang said. "Physically and mentally handicapped people need to live with dignity."
Tang Feng-cheng (唐峰正), who is also wheelchair bound and currently a city government employee, called on the city government to regulate the height of ATMs for the convenience of the handicapped.
Yang Chin-chung (楊錦鐘), chairman of the Taipei Visually Challenged Caring Foundation (台北市視障關懷基金會), agreed.
"We'd like to see the city government take the initiative to revise existing construction laws which fail to cover the establishment of ATMs. After all," he added, "we're not asking much. We just want to have restrooms with wider doors and more room, and more accessible ATMs."
Secretary-general of the Office of Building Standards (建管處) under the city's Bureau of Public Works (工務局), Chen Mou-chun (陳茂春), promised to report the situation to the city's Barrier-free Environment Promotion Committee (無障礙環境推動委員會) for immediate improvement.
As of June this year, the city of Taipei has about 84,000 physically and mentally handicapped people, about one eighth of Taiwan's total handicapped population of 690,000.
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