The territory affiliates of the Northeast ADA join Joe Zesski to discuss barriers to transportation for people with disabilities in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. They also discuss accessible recreation in each territory and local work to create more access.
The territory affiliates of the Northeast ADA join Joe Zesski to discuss barriers to transportation for people with disabilities in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. They also discuss accessible recreation in each territory and local work to create more access.
Transportation Challenges In Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands
JOE ZESSKI: Hello. Welcome to Ask About the ADA, the podcast where we answer your questions about the Americans with Disabilities Act and how it applies to your everyday life. I'm Joe Zesski, the program manager here at the Northeast ADA Center.
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On today's edition of Ask About the ADA, we're going to go back to a webinar that the Northeast ADA presented in March of 2022. In this webinar, we explored issues that came up in the territories covered by the Northeast ADA Center. The Center covers New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands.
So we spoke with Archie Jennings of the Disability Rights Center of the Virgin Islands, as well as Nellyber Correa of MAVI, the independent living center that serves Puerto Rico and also serves as the local Northeast ADA affiliate on-island. In today's episode, we explore transportation and recreation issues. I hope you enjoy.
All three of you have mentioned transportation at some point today. Of course, you have both residents and tourists that come to the island, but let's start to explore what works well and what maybe poses a challenge. Archie, let's begin with you.
ARCHIE JENNINGS: Yes, yes. I can address it as the very beginning of COVID that the local transportation was shut down completely on St. Thomas, as well as St. Croix. And St. Thomas is a much smaller island. And, therefore, at least if something was running, there gave more accessibility to the population, whereas St. Croix-- it's a very large and much flatter island, but the coverage of the public transportation is not fully extensive to the entire island.
JOE ZESSKI: Ah, OK.
ARCHIE JENNINGS: So it's-- it was-- before hur-- the pandemic, it wasn't as accessible. And there's conflicts with regard to certain issues as to who can ride the services and keeping it up. So that's something that the community needs to address, making sure you have accessible paratransit buses. Matter of fact, that has already started to come together. We're going to have some trainings with the bus drivers.
So our challenges still remain the same, trying to make sure that population, like Mildred was talking about, days on the eye of the public transportation to make them do what they're supposed to do under the law, as well as we also participate with one of our advocates, Julien Henley, to train the public-transportation bus drivers as to being sensitive to people with disabilities, especially those with invisible disabilities. Ah,
JOE ZESSKI: Yeah.
ARCHIE JENNINGS: Yeah, we're picking that up as we go along. So we actually missed two years of training during this period of time. So that's where we are with trying to get transportation, at least up to the level it was, before moving forward again on addressing the long-term issues.
JOE ZESSKI: Makes sense. What about in Puerto Rico, Nellie?
NELLYBER CORREA: Well, in Puerto Rico, we don't have an effective transportation to all the island. Our metropolitan area have paratransit and have the public system, transportation system. And this represents like seven or six municipalities. We have 78% municipalities on the island, so it's like the approximately 7% of our civilians have the opportunity to get or have access to transportation.
If a person from east wants to go to the west-- face a lot of trouble because there's not an effective transportation that connects all the municipalities. So when a person with a disability has to go to the medical services or other kind of services, they face the situation that it's too expensive to get to transportation. Or, for example, in a TA question, a person says that she was on the bus station and didn't necessarily get down the ramp to get the person get into the bus and have access to transportation.
So as Archie mentioned, we have the situation that the public service needs more training about how to be sensible to people with disability, how to do dignity treat to people with disability. So we have some transportation that are exclusive for people to get to the appointments, medical appointments, but they don't have the transportation to go to the supermarket or to get other kind of services. So it's an area of opportunity to the government and to our island to develop for more access to the community.
JOE ZESSKI: Opportunity is a good way to put it. Challenges are definitely places for growth. I'd like to end with one more question, though, for everyone. Here at the Northeast ADA, of the areas that we're focusing on during our new grant is recreation access. Could you highlight one item about recreation access on island? And for this question, Archie, why don't we start with you.
ARCHIE JENNINGS: OK. Well, it actually, it had happened, I think, the summer before the pandemic-- is that the two recreational areas-- one on St. Thomas and one on St. Croix-- were outfit with beach mats and accessible devices to allow a person to enter the water and exit the water. So under government sponsorship of the Department of Planning and Parks and Recreation, Magens Bay-- it's under authority-- Magens Bay Authority-- and then in one in St. Croix called Cramer's Park was outfitted with beach mats.
Also, even a private concern out in the town of Frederiksted on St. Croix on the western end-- the local group put a park, a playground park. We were-- our offices in St. Croix were asked to comment on it, trying to make sure they had certain mat ground cover so persons couldn't really get injured. But they asked for some input, and then input was given.
And that's also under-- our territory ADA coordinator participated in those activities. So it's-- hopefully, they'll pick that effort up and continue it, but it is becoming a focus. And, again, like I said, it is an election year, so I expect more mayhem before November. And we got a full summer because all the sudden, you get a lot done during an election year. That just slides there.
JOE ZESSKI: It does. [LAUGHS]
ARCHIE JENNINGS: But that's what's happening. [LAUGHS]
JOE ZESSKI: Thanks, Archie. And Nellie, what about in Puerto Rico?
NELLYBER CORREA: Well, in Puerto Rico, we have the Department of Recreation. And they have this program, that's named Mares sin Barrera. I talked-- the last podcast we participated, we talked about that. It's-- the name in English is "Sea without Barriers." These programs allow people with disability to participate in the activities with this equipment or device that Archie mentioned.
And we have also, a park in San Juan that has the accessibility for people with disability, like swings and that kind of services. Recently, we opened, technically, everything here in the island. But it was very difficult to access after the pandemic. So I don't know how are things in that kind of services.
And we have a project for-- a lab project that had been submitted to the representative and the legislators. This project is evaluating the beach from Punta Salinas-- that is in Toa Baja Municipality-- to make it accessible. So we know that the government is trying to make an accessible area for people with disability because recreation is a part of the daily living, and it is important for people.
JOE ZESSKI: That's an important point, Nellie. Recreation is part of being in the community for people with and without disabilities. Having recreation access is a part of living well and being a member in the community.
Well, thank you for joining us today on Ask About the ADA. I hope you found that segment interesting. If you'd like to know more about transportation and the ADA or recreation and the ADA, please feel free to contact us at the Northeast ADA. You can call us at 1 800-949-4232 or visit our website, www.northeastada.org. And, of course, you can also look for us on social media by looking for @northeastada.
As always, I'd like to thank Grace Fairchild, the producer and editor for the podcast, as well as Peter Quinn of the Yang Tan Institute's media team who does the final editing and polishing. And to all of you, thank you for listening and being a part of the conversation.
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