Why Hong Kong is so hard to get around if you’re in a wheelchair or blind, and what could be done to make city more accessible
Outdated and ineffective government regulations, profit-hungry property developers and ill thought out designs make the city far from barrier-free, as we discover on a half-day wheelchair challenge
As if navigating the crowded streets of Hong Kong in a wheelchair isn’t frustrating enough, there are far greater obstacles to overcome. To better understand those barriers, I took up the challenge of completing six tasks while in a wheelchair – and soon understood how inacessible Hong Kong is for those, such as the disabled and elderly, who use one to get around compared to Japan, Singapore and many European countries.
Supposedly barrier-free facilities are not designed from a user’s perspective, wheelchair users say – something architects blame on inflexible and outdated government regulations.
Rachel Cheung tackles the wheelchair challenge
One of the challenges set by Arts with the Disabled Association Hong Kong and WYNG Media Award Masters was to take a photo inside Wan Chai Computer Centre. It sounds simple enough, but it becomes almost impossible in a wheelchair.
I circled the building, pushing myself through the crowd, before finally finding an obscure wheelchair symbol in the alley near Southorn Playground. There’s another building between the alley and the Computer Centre, and we wouldn’t have known the buildings were connected if the organiser had not told us.
I wheeled myself towards it, turning in to a dark doorway, only to find the gate shut. I then tried my luck at the back of the building, from the car park where a cargo lift was located. Reaching the lift means going through five doors and up a long ramp, by which time my arms were aching. Once in the lift, the door wouldn’t close. To make matters worse, calls to the management office at a number listed on the wall went unanswered.
