Limited access

At the beginning of the 1994-95 academic year, only three LexTran buses had chair-lifts, but as we enter the final weeks of the year, seven of the eight UK route buses are finally accessible.

Although the department of parking and transportation, the people we all love to hate, promised complete accessibility last summer, we would like to applaud this `better late than never' action.

Few students will say they have no complaints. Some of those complaints are valid, but of all student complaints disabled students' complaints probably possess the most validity.

Until this year, students that use wheelchairs couldn't access the president's office to voice a complaint. This accessibility was limited both at the Administration Building door and at the sidewalk curb, where several students were regularly passed by because the buses were overcrowded or unaccessible.

Of course, disabled accessibility isn't just about being able to complain, but the slow progress on the part of the administration in improving this aspect of campus life has left little else for UK's disabled to do.

One student reported that she sat in a cold downpour of rain as two accessible buses drove right past her. The drivers, in their defense, said the buses were too full to accommodate disabled, but why, in 1995 are the disabled being left out in the rain?

Renovations at the Administration Building have made wheelchair entry possible, and the recent addition of three chair-lift equipped buses has has improved overall campus accessibility for our fellow students, but the campus still needs more awareness about disability and the challenges this condition presents.

It is impossible to please all of the people all of the time, but this institution is offering a product, an education that continues to cost more and more, and no one in UK's hierarchy should ever forget that students, even those with special needs, are the consumers.

A product is useless to the customer if he or she cannot get to it.

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