As Victor Pineda navigated the many obstacles to wheelchair users in the Westwood North Village on his way home from a doctor’s appointment he shouted, “I’m trapped in the middle of the street.”
Pineda, a graduate student in urban planning, was frustrated because at the intersection of Strathmore Drive and Landfair Avenue, none of the curbs are cut so that they are accessible to wheelchair users, a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Pineda is also forced to maneuver around cars parked so that they protrude onto the sidewalk virtually every time he passes through Westwood.
When he moved farther up the street in an attempt to get back on the sidewalk, he discovered that a car was parked parallel to a driveway, prolonging the time he had to stay in the street with the bulky wheelchair and forcing him to face oncoming traffic.
“There’s not much awareness about how important the sidewalks are,” he said while carefully rolling over a broken section of sidewalk. “There are a combination of factors that make this area dangerous, and I don’t want to have to feel like that on my way home.”
Another problem he said he faces regularly is navigating the many cars illegally parked in and on the sidewalks of the village, commonly referred to as apron parking because cars are parked in the lower part of the driveway adjacent to the sidewalk, which is called the apron of the driveway.
This type of parking is illegal but has gone unenforced in Westwood for years, and many residents are unaware of the laws forbidding it.
Pineda has muscular dystrophy and has been using a wheelchair to get around since the age of 7. He said he has navigated some “pretty crazy” places such as Bosnia and Thailand after the tsunami, which makes him no stranger to facing obstacles in a wheelchair.
“But this is my neighborhood,” he said. “And I want to be able to get around.”
Beginning on Aug. 1, the city plans to begin ticketing cars that are illegally parked in the North Village, in part because of the accessibility problems of Westwood residents with mobility disabilities.
Michelle Tang, president of the Disabled Students Union, said she has heard of the apron parking problem, but many of the complaints she receives from the UCLA disabled community center around not having enough handicapped parking spaces in the village.
She said that because there is a lack of parking, students with disabilities often have to park and then move long distances and around the obstacles in the North Village to get where they are going.
UCLA offers some transportation options to students with mobility disabilities, including a shuttle that will take students to and from class from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., as well as an evening shuttle that is wheelchair accessible, said Ed McCloskey, notetaking and mobility assistance coordinator for the Office for Students with Disabilities.
McCloskey also said his office offers a number of different parking permits to students with disabilities to make it easier for them to get around the area and can sometimes negotiate parking for students with disabilities in the university apartment garages.
But while there are options for students to get to and from class during the day on weekdays, there are not a lot of options for students with disabilities to navigate Westwood.
“This is a beautiful area, and sometimes I just want to get around,” Pineda said.
But broken sidewalks, inaccessible curbs and apron-parked cars are not just a problem for disabled students.
“This is an issue for anybody that needs to use sidewalks, not just those with disabilities,” said Dan Levitt, the assistant director of the Office for Students with Disabilities.
Pineda agreed, adding that students carrying grocery bags and the elderly can also have problems navigating the streets of Westwood.
But for Pineda, and the five other people he knows who live in his building and use wheelchairs, this is an issue of equal access to public space.
“The city needs to know they’re violating the ADA, which ensures mobility and access as a civil rights issue,” he said.