How does the United States measure up to other countries in terms of making public and private places accessible for people with disabilities?

Although some might assume that the comprehensive package of legislation called the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) would automatically place the United States at the forefront of the accessibility movement, the truth is more complicated. (In 1995, the United Kingdom passed its own package of legislation called the Disability Discrimination Act but, unfortunately, major portions of it will not be enforceable until 2005.)

"The United States has the most progressive legislation in the world right now, and has cause to be very proud of the ADA," says Patrick Kellerman, project officer with Disabled Peoples' International (DPI), a network of disability organizations in 115 countries.

"However, there are still a lot of simple things that haven't been done, like curb cuts throughout the entire United States, which frankly I would have considered to be just obvious," says Kellerman, a visually impaired wheelchair user who lives and works in Manitoba, Canada. He says that curb cuts are standard throughout Canada and many of the Scandinavian countries.

"Finland's astonishingly progressive. It's got good legislation even though it doesn't have an omnibus package like the ADA," Kellerman says. He feels that in some countries public attitudes toward people with disabilities are more enlightened than in the United States.

As for Canada, Kellerman is pleased that progress has taken place in his own country but feels that more could be done: for instance, helping the visually impaired by installing audio signals at traffic crossings.

"A lot of people used to think a WALK/DON'T WALK sign would be absurd," he argues. "Now in most major cities it's not absurd at all. So why would an audio signal to help the visually impaired be absurd? The technology exists and it's not particularly expensive."

FALSE COMPARISONS

"When we get into the developing countries, the Third World, it's still very often the case that disability is looked upon as some type of shameful event or failing, a burden for families," Kellerman says. The tragic result is that in some countries people with disabilities stay at home, out of sight.

However, Kellerman cautions that comparing attitude and accessibility in countries of various economic levels can be difficult, even impossible.

Others agree.

"Definitions of accessibility are culturally based," says Carole Patterson of Mobility International, a worldwide disability rights organization with U.S. headquarters in Eugene, Ore. MIUSA, which can be reached at (541) 343-1284, offers educational travel exchange programs for people with disabilities.

Patterson elaborates: "In a developing country where there's more human power than there is economic capital, providing assistance by way of human intervention is more possible than providing electric wheelchairs or ramps. Not to say that we wouldn't hope those things would be provided, too, one day."

Human intervention can mean being lifted up steps by a family member or friend. "Look at a country like Mexico, where people are living in physically inaccessible conditions but are using family members as a way of mediating that environment," Patterson says.

"It's not something that sits well with a lot of American disability rights people," Patterson acknowledges. "But we don't want to set a standard for the world that's based on our economic level and our expectations without considering that there may be differing ways of approaching the issue."

VARYING NOTIONS

Patterson says that in Europe, an entrance with one step would be considered accessible because a person in a manual wheelchair could generally gain access either independently or with some assistance. "That's not the same standard we would use in the United States," she says.

"People's ideas of accessibility vary," says Erin Gullage, a travel accessibility specialist at Neverland Adventures, an agency that specializes in travel for people with disabilities and can be reached at (800) 717-UCAN. Gullage is a wheelchair user with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy who has traveled extensively herself.

"With the ADA, a lot more people are complying, especially in my industry as far as the bigger hotels and even some of the smaller chains," says Gullage. But she notes that even hotels that attempt to comply often deviate by several inches when it comes to providing a doorway of the ADA-prescribed width or a toilet of the correct height.

Gullage says that many buses in the United States are lift- equipped for wheelchairs, which she hasn't found to be the case in other countries. Trains, too, she says, are generally more accessible in the United States than in Europe, with some notable exceptions.

HISTORICAL QUESTIONS

Kellerman says that older European cities tend to be problematic when it comes to accessibility. "There's the question of attitude. And then there are the historical questions. Do you tear up cobblestones to make access easier? Do you change a castle to make it wheelchair accessible?"

Gullage says she faces some of the same problems in Boston, where she lives. "It's a lot older than other parts of the country. You're going to run into cobblestones, which isn't very good for electric wheelchairs. It can really jolt the equipment."

She recalls that trains in Austria and Germany compared very favorably with Boston's transit system. And while many of the great European cathedrals remain inaccessible, Gullage says the same is still true of many churches in the United States.

In some countries where local residents are simply not used to seeing people with disabilities in public, attitude is still a major barrier. "I was looked at like I was from another planet," says Gullage of her visit to Spain. "Both because of my wheelchair and probably also because at the time I had shocking light blonde hair."

"In Canada, some very large media events have led to changes in attitudes with respect to disabled people," Kellerman says, referring to such events as the around-the-world trek in a wheelchair by Canadian Rick Hansen in the 1980s. "These were public media events that crystallized public attitude around the abilities of people with disabilities.

"I don't know whether the attitude comes first and then the physical accessibility, or whether accessibility comes first and then the attitude changes," Kellerman says. "I think the two go hand in hand. And whether it starts at a state, federal, or civic level, it can be worked out. I think the federal government in the United States with the ADA has pointed a way in the right direction."

Maybe it's fair to say that in terms of both attitude and physical accessibility, the United States has taken a few healthy steps into the arena. Other countries with economic resources may be a few steps ahead, or a few behind. Ones without resources are either progressing poorly or doing their best on their own terms, depending on your point of view. For all, a world of accessibility remains to be explored, a world of barriers confronted and eventually overturned.

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: FORMER SOVIET UNION

Audrey Falk, a former teacher who became a full-time artist in 1991, has FSH dystrophy. She has made several trips to the former Soviet Union, including a visit to Vitsyebsk in Belarus to attend an international artists' symposium honoring painter Marc Chagall.

I've been in many places in the former Soviet Union. Unfortunately, the only accessibility is from crumbled curbs - purely by accident. There are no curb cuts.

About three years ago, we brought a motorized cart to give to a friend's son in Belarus who has Duchenne dystrophy. People just stopped in their tracks when they saw him using it. I've had the same experience with crowds gathering around me in my motorized cart. They've never seen anything like it.

People with disabilities there just tend to stay in their flats. And what's terrible is that most of them don't have elevators or, if they do, the elevators don't work.

In the airport at Minsk, there was one wheelchair. The person operating it didn't know how to use it properly. He almost took me down a curb facing forward. I don't speak Russian so I had to use sign language to say, "Turn around."

Everywhere you go there are steps, and steps, and steps, even in new buildings. One night in Vitsyebsk, I had to go up on a stage with the other artists. My husband helped me up the steps, but everyone could see what a struggle it was for me to get on the stage.

After that in Vitsyebsk, wherever there were steps, there would always be someone who would appear, almost like magic, to help carry me in a chair. It just got to be routine that there'd always be two men to carry me and the chair up and down steps. They did it in the most natural way, so it wasn't uncomfortable, as if they just had a sense of what needs to be done.

The people are extraordinarily thoughtful. They have a government which cares nothing about creature comforts. But the people are generous and caring, and I have a lot of admiration and for them and their culture.

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: CANADA

Shelley Obrand of Hollywood Hills, Fla., has a form of muscular dystrophy and serves on MDA's National Task Force on Public Awareness. She grew up in Montreal, Canada, and has been back there several times.

When I was visiting Montreal seven years ago, it was a very difficult situation. I found the city totally inaccessible. There were very few curb cuts. Many restaurants had steps to go into them. Malls were inaccessible because of steps and revolving doors.

As far as visiting relatives and friends, everybody had a flight of stairs to go up, which makes it quite inaccessible. That has not changed.

But I've been back and, in comparison between seven years ago and today, some things have come a long way. Now there are curb cuts, and alternate accessible entrances to shopping malls. Their metro (subway) system is more accessible.

There is a city-run van service that conveys people with disabilities to school or work or a hospital for a nominal fee. And, for the most part, everybody is friendly and accommodating.

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: ENGLAND

Erin Gullage has facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, uses a wheelchair, and makes a living arranging travel for people with disabilities. Recently she visited London with an able-bodied friend.

There's an organization in England called RADAR. You can get a key from them for a small fee. The key opens up disabled bathrooms in public buildings across the country. They're separate from the able-bodied bathrooms, and no one can get in without the key, so they're rather clean. But you have to know about the key.

The pubs in London were really accessible. A lot of them you could just roll right in, or there was one step.

I would say that about 80 percent of London had curb cuts. But the Underground (subway system) is not accessible, unless you can walk down a flight of steps. And what the English call subways - walkpaths underneath heavy traffic streets - were also inaccessible for us. Once we had to take a taxi just to get across the street.

There's something called the Station Link, a bus that goes around London and hits all the major train stations, and it's accessible for tourists who are wheelchair users.

We "walked" everywhere. In London, things look far away on the map but they're not. Unfortunately, it was cold and drizzled all the time, which is a problem when you can't use the Underground.

We visited the British Museum, the National Gallery, and we saw several plays and musicals. All were accessible, as are most of the taxis.

I found the English to be very helpful. Whenever we were looking at a map, someone would come up and offer to help. I thought that was great.

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: MEXICO

Mona is the mother of Tomás Díaz, the 8-year-old boy from Houston who has spinal muscular atrophy and served as MDA's 1995 National Goodwill Ambassador. Mona's husband, Camilo, and younger son, Andrew, were part of this experience.

My husband, Camilo, was working abroad in Mexico City and we went down to join him for about four months.

In terms of convenience, the only thing I saw was a disabled parking space. And even though I have a disabled license plate on my car, the police would always come over and ask, "Why'd you park here?" Even though it was obvious I had a son using a wheelchair, you always had to explain yourself.

In fact, they were very shocked to see the wheelchair. I may have seen only one other person in a wheelchair in the four months I was there. They just don't seem to come out in public.

To go any place with Tomás was terribly difficult. There were huge holes in the sidewalk. You'd go to a museum and the parking lot wasn't paved. You'd have to push a wheelchair through rocks.

It's hard enough to get around with a child with a disability in the United States, but it's double work in a country that doesn't have the facilities to help you out. Tomás would ask "Why can't we go there?" and we'd have to explain that we just couldn't get him through.

After four months, Tomás and I were ready to come home.