Disabled transport entry a “national embarrassment”, MPs warn | EUROtoday

Accessibility on public transport for disabled folks is a “national embarrassment”, a senior group of MPs has warned.

A report by parliament’s cross-party transport choose committee discovered “systematic” failings throughout all public transport and says “too great a burden is placed on individual disabled people” to carry operators and authorities to account.

Disabled-led charity Transport for All is urging the federal government to behave on the report’s findings.

Local Transport Minister Simon Lightwood stated “there is more to do to ensure everyone can travel easily and with dignity”.

“It’s clear that accessibility has been an afterthought in developing transport services and there is more to do to ensure everyone can travel easily and with dignity,” he added.

The report discovered practically seven in 10 disabled folks report experiencing limitations to journey both most or all the time.

Ruth Cadbury MP, who chairs the transport choose committee, advised the BBC: “I’m so disappointed that my fellow citizens, my constituents can’t make the kind of choices that I can make about how they live their day to day lives.”

MPs say that the present system is just too troublesome to navigate. They’re calling on the DFT, which is in control of transportation coverage in England, to simplify the system and to take a look at attainable adjustments to laws, which in idea, they are saying may very well be carried out in different UK nations.

The report requires a change in tradition, which they are saying is urgently wanted to reframe incapacity inclusion as “a non-negotiable matter of human rights”

Transport for All stated the report findings “paint a damning picture”, highlighting that the disabled group “does not have equal access to any mode of transport.”

Caroline Stickland, the charity’s chief government, advised the BBC: “We really welcome this clear call to action that the current state of transport inaccessibility in this country can not continue.”

“This report is a wakeup call for the government to address transport accessibility and make sure the UK is a place for all of us.”

The report makes 29 conclusions and proposals – together with one which the Government ought to produce a brand new inclusive transport technique inside 12 months.

The report additionally recommends that ministers have a look at simplifying the present regulatory and enforcement which they are saying is “far too fragmented and complex”.