Germany Vs. Italy
Part 2: Accessibility
Yep, a couple of eyes went through the first part of this Germany Vs. Italy match, so I decided to expand a bit my views and focused on accessibility.
First of all, my definition of accessibility:
capability to pass a threshold unobstracted and without barriers
Moving with a baby carriage you start noticing accessibility issues more and more.
By bus
In Hamburg, Germany, it is not rare that the bus driver, in addition to pneumatically lowering the vehicle on the sidewalk side, comes out of her seat and open the ramp to facilitate entry / exit operations with the baby carriage.
In Italy, the bus driver does not even think about anything like that. To be fair, she is often not even requested to think about it, as buses (very) rarely have access ramps…
By train
Mmm, if the comparison for the buses was skewed in favour of Germany, in this sector there is simply no context.
In Italy (i.e. Roma Tiburtina) it is often already difficult to reach the platforms. Furthermore, inside the normal trains there is practically no space whatsoever (except maybe the toilet) to place the carriage: obviously you should first manage to lift it into the wagon, climbing over 3 infernally narrow and high steps.
By foot
A sidewalk with no ramp is, by far, the exception in Germany.
In Italy, it is not uncommon. Anyway, even when there are ramps, it does not automatically mean that you can use them:
- somebody could have parked in front of them
- they could be located far, far away from zebra crossings
Moreover it can be that you have a ramp on a side of the street and none on the other, so crossing is not exactly facilitated.
Remark
May it be that I see more persons with motion handicaps moving around in Germany than in Italy due to the different level of accessibility the society offers?
PS:
There are a lot of German produced lifts in Italy.
Could somebody help me telling my hosts to start using them (or better said, any lift) even in Germany???
