Click by Click

01.09.2007

To catch up on information for moving into another town through the internet can be quite bothersome. Especially when you are looking for wheelchair accessible offerings.

Moving to a new town may be exciting, but it is exhausting in the first place: Packing up your belongings, lugging them outside. However, finding the right area and place to stay is certainly the hardest part, particularly for people with disabilities. Isn’t it? In order to find out, I decide upon an experiment: I am going to look for cities whose websites provide information that assist wheelchair users in moving houses.

My selection: Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne and Leipzig. My criteria: barrier-free flats, accessible registration offices, information about handicapped accessible public transport. My plan: To find out about all this on the cities’ official websites. My first success: Berlin’s website offers a search function for barrier free apartments - only three clicks needed. The Municipal Transport Services also provide me with a clear overview on barrier free public transport in the capital. That’s what I call Prussian thoroughness.

Anyway, there exists some kind of Prussian talent for improvisation as well, it seems. The registration Offices are easy to find on the website, but there is no information about whether they are wheelchair accessible or not. I need a telephone: I listen to quite a few sessions of Beethoven’s Ninth while being on hold. Having talked to many people, I learn: There is no list, but a lot of personal experience. Apparently there are many ways for wheelchair users to get into the registration office. In Charlottenburg district, for example, wheelchair users have to use the side entrance of the public library next door and then try to find somebody in order to ask for further information how to get to the town hall.

The direct link to wheelchair accessible flats on Berlin’s website is unique. However, Cologne offers internet users a free service for flat-hunting - personally or via telephone. Further information: the service point is wheelchair accessible. Perfect service also when it comes down to the registration office: On Cologne’s website you find a list of all offices with just a few clicks and you ca see at a glance whether there are wheelchair accessible entrances, elevators, parking sites and toilettes. To sum it up: all registration offices in cologne are barrier free.

Unfortunately, the internet-friendly service is not true for busses and trains in Cologne. In order to find out how to use public transport as a wheelchair user I have to call transport services. Only with the thorough help of a friendly staff member I am able to find the PDF “Tours without steps”, though - a list of all barrier free stops in Cologne.

My range of positive experiences finds a sudden end in Hamburg. Searching for a wheelchair accessible flat in Hamburg is more than difficult. There is no information whatsoever on the city's website about accessible flats or estate agents. The registration offices are impossible to find. Instead of information all I find are advertisement banners on Hamburg’s website. Highly misplaced since I don't want to buy anything.

Die Telefonrechnung will ich gar nicht sehen, denn Hamburg wird zur „Stadt mit den meisten Anrufen“. Ich wähle eine allgemeine Service-Nummer. Eine nette Computerstimme vertreibt die Wartezeit. Dann erfahre ich von einer Dame, dass sie von einer Liste der Meldeämter nichts wisse. Ob die Meldeämter barrierefrei seien: ja. Wo das steht? Weiß sie nicht. Ich solle es auf www.hamburg.de versuchen. Nein danke, da komme ich ja gerade her.

My phone bill will be huge, because Hamburg is the city with the “most phone calls”. I try a general service number first. A friendly computer voice helps me pass the time. After that, a lady tells me, that she knows nothing about a list of registration offices. I ask her, whether registration offices are barrier free or not. See says they are barrier free. I ask her whether that’s written somewhere. She doesn’t know. I should try www.hamburg.de. No, thanks, that’s where I’m just coming from.

I hardly dare to check mobility in Hamburg. Rather coincidently I come across the public transports’ website and finally find the information I was looking for: a list of all the registration offices in town and information about wheel chair accessibility as well as information about accessible stops and transport. Just a simple link on Hamburg’s website would have saved me so much time.

My search on cities’ web presentation shows: except for flats I can find everything, at one time or another. Patience and the telephone are vital for the search. Many a town should really follow Leipzig’s example: on Leipzig’s website you will find the information you need, without telephone and at record speed.

REHACARE.de