True Disability Inclusion Requires Planning for the Unexpected
When we talk about accessibility, people often focus on the thing: the ramp, the captioning, the hearing device, the accessible stall, the screen reader. But physical accessibility is only about the presence of a tool. It's about what happens when that tool breaks. Or isn’t set up. Or is unfamiliar to the person temporarily in charge. That’s where disability inclusion either succeeds or spectacularly fails.
Here is why this is so important to me: When my daughter was in second grade, she used an FM system for her severe hearing loss. The system connected a teacher-worn microphone directly to her hearing aids. It bypassed the background noise of a typical classroom and delivered her teacher’s voice at a level tuned to her hearing profile. This system wasn’t a nice-to-have—it was how she understood what was going on in class.
One day, her regular teacher was out sick. A last-minute substitute was called. The FM system was operational, but the substitute didn’t know it was there. There was a plan in her IEP for training the substitute, but it didn’t get executed. No one stopped to think that access isn’t self-sustaining—it requires people who know how to keep it running.
That day also had a non-standard release pattern away from the regular pick-up spot. Because the substitute wasn’t wearing the FM, my daughter never heard those changes. She missed the directions entirely. She didn’t know where to go.
So she wandered off campus. Alone. For 45 minutes. I demanded that the school call the police, and they found her.
The problem wasn't the FM system. The system was functional. The problem was that the school failed to execute the backup plan when the trained person was absent. The system was accessible in theory, but not in practice when the smallest, most predictable disruption occurred.
This is what people miss about accessibility. Ramps are of no use if the only entrance with a ramp is locked on weekends. Elevators are of no use if the fire alarm disables them, and there's no evacuation plan or stair climber in place for people who can’t use stairs. Hearing loops at movie theaters don’t help if there are no employees on the shift who know how to turn them on. A feature is only accessible when it works, and someone is accountable for it continuing to operate as intended.
If you build your accessibility plan around ideal conditions, you haven’t built a real plan. Things will break. People will be out. Devices will fail. Users will make mistakes. Weather will shift. Human error will happen. What matters is how your system responds when it does. Accessibility means planning for real life. That is what resiliency is all about.
It means recognizing that elevators need more than mere presence. Things go wrong; it’s one of the few things guaranteed in life. What is controllable is how organizations react when things go wrong. Is your organization the type that has a fussy, long procurement process requiring multiple bids before ordering parts and then waiting months before the elevator is back in service, and you don’t bother to communicate anything to the impacted individuals? Or do you keep parts in stock, have repair personnel on staff or under contract, notify affected individuals, have a detour path, and have a second accessible exit or a stair climber?
It means not covering broken concrete with red caution tape and labeling the problem “fixed”. Broken sidewalks are barriers. Cracked pavement and lip gaps aren’t minor inconveniences when you're using a walker or pushing a stroller; they are fall hazards and wheelchair tire traps. If there's glass in the road from a broken bottle, someone on foot who can see it can step around it. Someone with low vision or using mobility devices might not be able to do the same.
It means acknowledging that when an elevator, which is a single point of failure, is out of service and there’s no posted notice, no alternate route, and no signage, you’ve created a significant barrier. A person might roll down a hallway only to find they can't get back up. I actually had this happen at the San Jose airport. Or they’ll spend 30 extra minutes detouring around a failure that should have been communicated clearly and publicly. Or they might just leave.
It means stop saying “they can just ask for help.” That’s not dignity. That’s dependence. That’s putting the burden on disabled people to work around your organization’s failure to plan.
Accessible design isn’t one-and-done. It’s a living responsibility. You have to check that systems still work, train people to respond appropriately when they don’t, and build redundancy into your organization’s operations. Accessibility isn’t about perfection. It’s about anticipating potential failures and ensuring that no one gets harmed when they inevitably occur.
The takeaway is this: Disability inclusion is not about just providing a ramp. Disability inclusion is about what happens when the elevator is broken, or the ramp is blocked, and the person normally in charge isn’t there.
If you’ve only designed for the best-case scenario, you’ve only designed for nondisabled people.
You want to be an ally? Prove it by planning for things to go sideways. That’s where inclusion lives or disappears.