Clift Notes: MACCD gets new direction

Memphis Advisory Council for Citizens with Disabilities

By Christina Clift

On Wednesday, November 8, 2017 members of the Memphis Advisory Council for Citizens with Disabilities met for their last meeting of the year.  During the meeting new officers were elected, new members were introduced, and committee reports were given.  

The meeting started and ended on a somber note.  At the start of the meeting Gary Smith, the MACCD Chair, read a letter written by Mayor Strickland to Michael, the son of Veronica MacKinney, who passed away on October 22, 2017.  Veronica served as a member of the MACCD for many years and advocated tirelessly for local business to hire individuals with disabilities.  At the end of the meeting Gary Smith announced that he would be retiring from his position with the state, but that he would continue working with the council and other entities to improve the lives of people with disabilities in our community.

On a more positive note, new officers were elected during yesterday’s meeting.  They including Brandy Fox as Secretary, Deborah Carter as Vice Chair, and Christina Clift as Chair.  These individuals will hold their positions for the next two years. 

There are also seven new members on the MACCD to replace those individuals who had to step down, who died, or who did not meet the attendance requirement set forth in the bylaws.   

The new council members were given the opportunity to introduce themselves.  You can find a complete list of members by visiting http://www.memphistn.gov/Government/General-Services/MAC-for-Citizens-with-Disabilities

Finally, council members received updates from each committee on their progress towards their strategic goals.  The Housing and Community Access Committee is currently working on compiling information regarding resources for home modifications that assist in making homes accessible and enable people to remain living in their community. 

 

The Transportation Committee is working on auditing the five routes with the highest ridership to determine whether or not they are calling out stop announcements. This would enable people who are blind, memory loss or intellectual disabilities reminders and the ability to stay oriented as they travel on the bus.  The committee is also working with MATA to streamline the recertification process for MATAPlus.  

The Education and Employment Committee is working on recruiting and training local employers about hiring individuals with disabilities and their goal is to provide training for 12 businesses by August 2018.  

The Disability Awareness Committee is starting to plan for the 2018 Abilities Conference which will highlight the strengths of people with disabilities.  They are also working on developing a media campaign to promote the accomplishments of Memphians with disabilities as well as emergency preparedness.

Clift Notes: TAC and public participation

Transit Advisory Committee

By Christina Clift
On Friday, November 3, 2017 members of the Memphis Area Transit Authority’s (MATA) Transit Advisory Committee (TAC) met for their quarterly meeting.  Items covered during the meeting included: updates on community events, updates on the Bus Art project, reviewing proposed route changes, and looking at the Public Participation Plan that is included in the Title VI reporting by MATA.

First, members received reports on the committee’s involvement in community during the previous quarter.  They included the MATA Bus Rodeo and Transit Vision workshop.  The Bus Rodeo provided TAC members the opportunity to get a behind the scenes look at what skills are required to operate a bus including avoiding unexpected obstacles, parallel parking, sudden stops, and much more.  

Jessica Buttermore, TAC’s Chair was given the task of judging the parallel parking event.  Several members also attended the Transit Vision workshop on the other hand provided a hands-on experience to create a public transportation system not only in Prairieville but also in Memphis.  The activities in this workshop gave TAC members a better understanding of what MATA’s route planners do every time they change, cut, or create a route.  Finally, an update was also provided regarding the Bus Art project.  

Members of TAC of started talking to Memphis arts and Urban art organizations to discover if they are interested in partnering with TAC to create art work to help improve the atmosphere of the buses.  So far, they seem agreeable and the committee plans to continue working towards formalizing this partnership. 

Scarlet Ponder provided an update on proposed route changes which will be voted on during the next MATA Board of Commissioners meeting.  The proposed changes would affect the 7, 11, 47, and 56.  Three of these routes are proposed to have time frequency changes, which will impact riders on the 7, 11, and 56.  The final proposed route change would led to the suspension of route 47 which serves the Shelby Farms area. 

The 47 route is currently being funded through Congestion Mitigation Air Quality (CMAQ) grants.  MATA will reconsider resuming this route in the spring.  If they do not resume the route, they will either have to return the unused funds or gain permission to use them on other routes receiving CMAQ money.  For example, the route servicing the airport.  It’s important for people to make their voices heard on proposed route changes because changes made to MATA’s fixed route service trickle down and can have either a negative or positive impact on MATAPlus.

Our final task of the afternoon was a brief review of the draft copy of the 2017 Public Participation Plan which is included in reporting under Title VI.  This plan discusses how MATA handles certain policy changes like increasing bus fares, major route changes, and public events.  Of course, MATA wants as much participation in these decisions as possible and this plan explains how MATA gets it.  

If you’d like to review the 2014 Public Participation Plan you can go to MATA’s website at: http://www.matatransit.com/aboutus/insidemata/civil-rights   Improving communication and dialog with its riders is one of the simplest ways MATA can begin to create a better relationship with the public who often feel as if their voices don’t matter.

As the terms of TAC’s current members expire in January, some of us might step down and new people will step up.  If you are interested in serving on this committee, it is important to complete the application when it is released.  MATA seems to want to have help from the community to improve transit for all, but they need open-minded individuals with a willingness to serve others and not their own interests to help.  While as riders we have our own complaints, complements, and ideas on how things ought to be handled and run at MATA, the most important quality a TAC member needs is listening to others and a willingness to work as a team.

MATA tweets are not accessible

Much of MATA information sent with pictures of text

 

By Christina Clift, MCIL Advocate

People use social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat to stay connected.  We use them to send shout-outs to friends, to promote events, and to follow trending news topics. Twitter is even used by President Trump to communicate his thoughts to the entire world.  

Some people use Twitter to follow the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) to find out about route changes and other information that might impact their daily bus commute.  But their tweets aren’t always accessible to everyone.

A tweet is typically composed of up to 140 characters including punctuation marks.  So using proper English is not always easy and abbreviations and hashtags are more common.  However the one thing that can make the best tweet inaccessible for someone who is blind are photos.

Many people rely on assistive technology software to read what’s on the screen. Technology allows people with visual impairments to keep up with Twitter just like everyone else. To make photos accessible over the web, developers use an “alt tag” that describes the photo.

MATA however, is tweeting images of flyers that are not described by the alt tag. To a blind patron, it is an image that does not have a description. The technique allows MATA to far exceed the 140 character limit in one tweet, but it is not accessible to a screen reader. 

For example, MATA has tweeted information on the 2017 December Service Changes Proposed back on October 17, 2017 that would take at least 3 text tweets. Because they used an image, all the information is in the picture, but it cannot be read by the computer as a typical tweet. The computer sees the tweet as an image and does not have a related “alt tag” to describe the picture.

• Example of inaccessible tweet by MATA: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DMVcEnfUQAAE6n8.jpg:large
• Example of an inaccessible retweet: https://twitter.com/APTA_Transit/status/923662933338607623

MATA sometimes uses photos to convey messages to its followers, but they are not communicating effectively to everyone.  MATA also has a federal responsibility to provide effective communication. The irony is that Twitter has a very simple method to provide the information in an accessible format.  By simply adding the appropriate alt tag to their photos, MATA can ensure that everyone receives their messages and not just the sighted.  

Yesterday MCIL had the opportunity to bring this issue up with the new MATA CEO, Gary Rosenfeld. As he recapped the meeting, Mr. Rosenfeld included accessible tweets was one of the six items MATA said they would work with MCIL on to provide more effective service.