An article by Antonella Candiago
“Every week in Brussels, several elevators in metro stations are out of service and remain in this status for days, or even weeks. This prevent people with disabilities, especially those using the wheelchair, from reaching their destination, forcing them to arrive late at work or in social situations, or not arriving at all. This not only results in stress and burnout among people with disabilities and their caregivers but discourages them from using public transport, therefore limiting their freedom of movement.
It is a huge problem, especially when even the elevators in the following station are not working either. For instance, it happens often in De Brouckere and St Catherine (two metro stations in the center of Brussels) simultaneously. Porte de Hal is also never working. Besides occurring often and taking infinite time for Brussels transport company ‘STIB’ to fix the lifts, not always the status of the elevators is correctly recorded and updated in STIB website.
Despite numerous complaints and calls for action, the Brussels transport company persists doesn’t want to improve the situation in terms of accessibility. They removed all the posters immediately. I wish they had the same level of speed in repairing the lifts!“
