The disabled all for facility to ease mobility

Saturday June 27, 2009

The disabled all for facility to ease mobility
By YIP YOKE TENG

SEVERAL readers from the disabled community expressed their support for the pedestrian pavement.

Stanislaus Anthony said wheelchair-bound people like him appreciated the disabled friendly facility because it had eased mobility within the area, especially when going to the St Francis Xavier’s Church and Universiti Malaya Medical Centre.

“I know it has incurred costs to dig up the pavement after just seven months of use to insert thew tactile blocks but then we have to start somewhere?” said the 59-year-old from Petaling Jaya Old Town.

“The area will be turned into a disabled friendly model and which will become an important asset for all Petaling Jaya folk. It really is not a waste,” he added.

Another resident, Francis Siva, who is also wheelchair-bound, said he was saddened that the public still did not understand how important the facilities were for them.

When told that the residents were not against the disabled friendly facility but rather the council’s poor planning which caused wastage of ratepayers’ money, he said: “We appreciate what the council has done for us, somebody has to do the work.”

A reader from Petaling Jaya Old Town, however, wrote in to point out that the area’s drainage was in a poor condition and he hoped the council could plan properly so that the money could be spent to improve other facilities that were in dire need of an upgrade.

All-Petaling Jaya Residents Associations Coalition (APAC) chairman Liew Wei Beng reiterated that they were not against barrier-free facilities but the council’s bad planning.

“The taxpayers’ money should not be wasted due to the council’s failure to plan their upgrading works. The PJ New Town is already a model for barrier-free facilities so why do they need another model for road pavements along Jalan Gasing? They should know from the beginning that being barrier-free includes facilities for the blind. Why did they only realise it seven months later?” said Liew.