Hello Tabifolk(ers) (could that be a word? Only @joshgrisdale can decide). I have a hot new mega accessibility fail for you, which I am currently working on solving: the brand new Gare Maritime in Brussels.
Opened a few months ago to the public, it was a major renovation project here in old Brux, one of the maxi storage buildings of the Tour & Taxis complex. Beautiful area, all in course of renovation and a hub for culture, events, exhibitions, food market. Beautiful. The Gare Maritime was renovated in a super stylish way and all sustainable eco wood everywhere blah blah blah. Beautiful piece of building, honestly. And it has two accessible toilets! One in the ladies’ bathroom and one in the men’s, double side grab rails, right height sink, good stuff, you can do wheelchair dancing in there it’s so wide. Sounds great right? You already think: I want to go there and go to the food market and drink a lot of Belgian beer because I know I can pee it all away afterwards.Except you can’t, because the entrance of these marvelous double side grab rails all accessible toilets are protected against the wheelchair users by a fortress of metal bars and an entrance that is so narrow that if you want to go in, you have to ask the toilet attendant to basically take apart all the entrance, and then s/he has to put it back together again. We experimented that with a friend a few weeks ago, it took three people to take apart and put back together the entrance, for approx 20 minutes.
Cool right?
Some photos for your enjoyment below.
Now: I obtained the contact of the facilities manager and sent him a very nice email two days ago. I will keep you posted on the results, and let you know if you can go and to your A and Bs in the Gare Maritime anytime soon.
Josh Grisdale9 Comments
Oh no! What would you do if you in a rush! Or if there isn’t someone around to take the barrier down? Or if both of those coincided! Please keep us updated if you hear back from the owner.
(PS – Like the “TabiFolkers” 👍)-
Let’s see what the contact person for the facility says, I already had sent an email to the info@ address couple of weeks ago with no answer, so this is the second attempt already. Third attemp will involve hacking the app you need to buy food at the food market to get an unlimited amount of gourmet fries for free. No beer of course as the bathroom is useless, but fries, oh so many fries.
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Hahaha, true, the beer would be dangerous. Though, a bunch of people in wheelchairs wetting themselves in front of the inaccessible toilets would make for a good demo that could get their attention!
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I did not dare say that using public wetting could be a great weapon, but you did and I support that, and happy to contribute with my own! Should send one of those anonymous letters with newspaper cuttings to them with this particular threat 😀
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This wouldn’t pass code in the US. My primary concern would be what if they let you in, forgot you were still in there and put the bars back, then there’s a fire! Suddenly this is a hazard that firefighters can’t easily remove for you, especially if it’s smoky. There are other turnstiles that open like a door that would work here and allow accessibility, maybe you can notify your government representative if the building owner doesn’t want to fix it? You should have the right to pee there without asking the local mum for permission. 😛
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Totally agree! Let’s see if they answer, so far silence….
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So, update! After only one email to an info address at the venue, followed by an email to the facilities manager (identified via another email to a personal direct contact who was very kind to send two emails to find out who the person in charge was) and a phonecall to his office, after which he calledme back after only a couple of hours we now know that they have formally contacted the company who manages the ticketing of the bathrooms and their set up, and they will have to solve this issue at their expenses, since they delivered a product that is not conforming to what was ordered (I guess an accessibe toilet that is actually accessible?).
So very kindly the facility manager (facility as in the building not the bathrooms as they say in the US) assured that as soon as they have solved the issue, hopefully in time for the summer bar opening in May, he`ll let me know.
Carbon footprint of the various emails and phonecalls : a total of 9 emails were exchanged 9*4grams =36 grams of CO2 + the 2 phonecalls I could not find a carbon fottoprint calculator for those but yeah -and not considering the cost for the stupid company that did the bathrooms, ad that now has to repair at their cost the mistake – which is the next target of my Belgian toilet investigation… at this point I want to find out if they did all the toilets they made with this fortress style entrance? Guess the next ones they will do better.
As soon as the summer bar and open toilet opens, expect some photos of me and 10 friends on a wheelchair all sipping our cocktails inside the toilets of the Gare Maritime.
