Pittsburgh Becoming More Accessible to Those with Disabilities

Pittsburgh recently held its first "Accessibility Meetup." This endeavor, organized by local disability advocates, seeks to make Pittsburgh as barrier-free as possible for those with disabilities.

The meetups will occur monthly, and conquer more than the logistics behind providing additional wheelchair ramps and automatic doors. They will leverage the abundance of Pittsburgh's technological brainpower and out-of-the-box thinking to create solutions to access barriers found throughout the city.

Topics for future sessions include:

• Making medication prescription labels accessible to people with vision impairment
• Accessible website design, especially employment sites
• Mapping accessible routes for pedestrians, similar to bike maps
• How to inform local officials about curb cuts and other access features in disrepair
• Improving consumer product design, especially those for household appliances, to take accessibility into account

The meetup's organizers hope to nurture sparks of innovation by encouraging input from creative people who may have never considered common access problems for those with disabilities. Attendance is open to a vast array of participants: individuals with disabilities, experts in city planning, engineers, professionals in robotics and design, and anyone who likes to solve problems.