How to improve the city to take into account the needs of people with disabilities
? This is the main question asked during this “Month of accessibility”, which began on October 26 in Grenoble. “Grenoble ranks among the best European cities“assures Luis Beltran, municipal councilor in charge of disability in Grenoble, guest of France Bleu Isère this Friday, November 4.
France Bleu Isère: How does Grenoble rank in terms of accessibility?
Luis Beltran: Grenoble ranks among the best European cities. This year, we were again able to apply for the Access City Award, which rewards efforts in terms of accessibility among European cities. In terms of transport, we have always been a little ahead, we have one of the first accessible trams in the world, which was designed by Dubedout and subsequently put in place by Carignon. We also have very accessible buses, but we have a lot of feedback from users who mainly ask us that the buses stop more often, because sometimes the buses do not stop, we are warned about it.
That’s to say ? Do you work with associations, are they included in this month of accessibility?
This month of accessibility was precisely built with the associations, we have more than 51 partners over the month, in particular the largest user associations, such as the Valentin Haüy association for the visually impaired for blind people, but also associations who are not necessarily used to working in the field of disability. So we really wanted to broaden, decompartmentalize this question of disability a little. For example, we are proposing maps with the association “L’Age d’or”, that is to say that we will go into the field to measure the height of the sidewalks and try to push even more the efforts that can be done to work on the road afterwards.
Precisely, on what plans should we make further progress in Grenoble?
So in Grenoble on accessibility, we work mainly on schools, on extracurricular. Not everything falls under the competence of the City, because we also have the alarming subject of the guides and guides for students with disabilities, which concerns national education. We, as a city, have the general competence which means that we work with the other local authorities to improve all of this. On the school, for example, we improve the canteens, we improve the extracurricular, we improve all the extracurricular times. But it is true that there is still a lot of effort to be made on the side of national education to cover all the needs of the children who are in the schools of the city.
So is it just a lack of resources?
Yes mainly. On the AESH, accompanying students with disabilities, we are working in particular on the revaluation of this status in the National Assembly so that the salary of these people is better considered, that we can hire in a more attractive way . Many offers are published on Pôle emploi but unfortunately recruitment is difficult to do.
On the other hand, when we speak for example of the width of the sidewalks, it is up to the city…
In terms of sidewalks, we are very well located in Europe, in particular thanks to the boats (note: lowering of the sidewalks) that we have been able to put in place and because we take all types of handicap into consideration. For example, we are working in particular on the Cours Berriat, where we were able to lower the boats and put guides, bandwidths on the ground. For example, we have them in front of the tourist office and in several places in the city of Grenoble which are quite strategic.
The idea, in Grenoble anyway, is to work with people with disabilities. For example, we have the body called the Grenoble Accessibility Commission, in which representatives of associations participate, where we can study files that concern both the exterior of the public space and the inside establishments open to the public. We see about 150 a year every six weeks. It is a body that lives a lot thanks to participatory democracy.
So you consider all disabilities, not just physical disability?
Of course, we never forget the 80% of invisible disabilities on which we work a lot, especially everything related to mental and cognitive disabilities. Today, we work a lot on integration in the schools of the city. For example, we installed an elementary autism teaching unit last year at the Ampère school. And this year, at the end of November, we set up an autism kindergarten teaching unit at the Buffon school. So we don’t stop and we always create more inclusive school systems.