What about us? EV Charging for Electric Wheelchair Users
Until I began school at age six, I was carried or crawled everywhere because of my congenital disability: spina bifida. Starting in the school year 1963 and until the year 2020, I maneuvered with leg braces and crutches, with almost no problem, including at age 20 or so, when I liked to jump off San Francisco’s iconic Cable Cars.
In 2020, I relegated from my forearm crutches of 57 years to use an electric wheelchair. No offense to wheelchair users, but I was so used to my independence with crutches I honestly saw myself as less independent or mobile by sitting in a wheelchair. Boy, was I wrong! And the fact that I use one of the finest Swiss-designed and engineered mobility scooters on the market is pure coincidence.
Many who use electric wheelchairs zip through the streets of San Francisco with no apparent fear of running out of power. But the fear is there, just like the gas gauge below E when searching for the nearest gas station.
As this nation sees the decreased need for gas stations and an increased need for Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations, what about us?
To exclude those who use electric wheelchairs from the billions of dollars in EV infrastructure grants announced last summer and then updated this week by the Biden/Harris administration is shortsighted, at the very least.
One day, I went on a cruise through the city to count how many electric wheelchairs I would see during my journey. I stopped counting after 40 electric wheelchairs in less than my two-hour and 10-mile radius. But I am sure there are at least several thousand electric wheelchair users in San Francisco.
But even with my upgraded mobility, I encountered an expensive problem dealing with my batteries. Some days, I barely made it home, like when a young lady selling drugs on my block noticed how slow I was going. She asked if I wanted to buy some weed, and I replied, “No. My batteries are low on charge, and my scooter is struggling.” She responded by offering to push me up the slight incline to my apartment’s front door. Though I declined that offer, the encounter was touching but embarrassing.
I switched to more expensive batteries, which makes it less likely that I might run out of power before needing to recharge, but having a portable charging station like an electric car would have relieved me of a lot of needless stress.
Zipping down Market Street at the UN Plaza, I saw an older gentleman recharging his wheelchair outside a JCDecaux public toilet. I stopped and asked him if I could take a picture of what he was doing and mentioned I thought it would be an excellent proof of the need to install charging stations for wheelchairs.
I researched this subject and found that a few cities in Oregon, New York, Washington state, and Florida have portable charging stations for electric wheelchairs.
Now, I’m intrigued.
After further investigation and the assistance of Supervisor Aaron Peskin, I took the information to Nicole Bohn, director of the San Francisco Mayor’s Office on Disability (MOD); she also uses an electric wheelchair. For the most part, we had a very encouraging and productive meeting. But from the beginning of our session to the end and beyond, I kept thinking about Ms. Bohn telling me, in a no-big-deal tone; two years earlier, someone suggested SF Rec & Park install electric wheelchair charging stations in Golden Gate Park. For the entire hour we talked, I could not understand that this reasonable idea was lying around in the city agency that claimed to have the back of people with disabilities for two years.
Now, I’m angry.
The Mayor’s Office on Disability had taken no interest in someone’s good idea to assist electric wheelchair users two years ago. The title of this city agency suggests that it must get permission from the mayor’s office to answer the phone or email, as I have experienced, or worse: it is feckless.
But I wonder how long electric wheelchair users of San Francisco will have to wait before someone at City Hall reads and understands the meaning of the words “Reasonable accommodations” in the Americans with Disabilities Act and then act on EV charging stations for those of us who use electric wheelchairs?
Update: I am pleased to announce that I have been heard. This email, dated April 27, 2023, is from the Mayor’s Office on Disability assistant director, Deborah Kaplan. It is in response to my request for an update on progress:
