Frequent elevator outages prompt concerns about accessibility on UMKC’s Health Sciences Campus

  It’s a Monday morning and students shuffle up and down the stairs of the Health Science Campus’s only parking garage. A note covers the buttons of the garage’s sole elevator stating that it will, again, be closed for maintenance. 

  Issues with the parking garage elevator are well known to students on UMKC’s Health Sciences campus. The elevator has been out of service several times in the past months, sometimes without any advance warning. 

  The elevator’s unreliability has made parking in the garage a frustrating experience for many, but for students with motor disabilities it has raised concerns about campus accessibility.

  Mira Bhatia is in her third year of the B.A./M.D. program and exclusively parks in the parking garage. She says the elevator is frequently out of order and there is often little notice given prior to closures. 

  “Sometimes you click the button on the elevator expecting it to come, and it just doesn’t show up. There’s no out of order sign. You’re just standing there unsure if the elevator will come or not,” Bhatia said. “How would someone in a wheelchair get out of this garage?”

  Nevaeh Vang, a third year majoring in health science, expressed similar frustrations at the administration’s lack of communication regarding elevator outages.

  “There usually isn’t any warning ahead of time, there’s just a sign at the bottom when you get there,” Vang said. “This sets me back about five minutes when I have to go down the stairs. It’s challenging when other students are coming up at the same time in a narrow staircase.”  

  Parking on UMKC’s Health Sciences campus is limited, and this is especially true for handicap parking. Each of the parking garage’s seven levels has just four handicap spaces clustered near its single elevator. Only the top four levels of the garage are designated for student parking. Levels two and three are reserved for faculty, as is the small handicap parking lot across the street.

  For comparison, the six floor Cherry Street garage located on UMKC’s Volker Campus has three elevators and between four and 12 spaces dedicated to handicap parking per level. 

  The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that a minimum of one in every 25 parking spaces be designated handicapped parking. While the Health Sciences garage is in compliance with this requirement, sudden elevator outages can effectively leave disabled students with no practical parking options. 

  Broken elevators are not the only challenge students and faculty with disabilities face. 

  Chloe Ross, a barista at Cafe Ru in the Health Science Campus Building, is concerned that the ongoing construction for the Healthcare Delivery and Innovation Building has created additional parking issues. She noted that construction crews have repeatedly parked vehicles in the small faculty handicap parking lot across from the building site. 

  “There’s been a white van parked in this [faculty handicap parking] lot for at least a week. They’re taking up one of the cross hatches for the disability spots. They’re booted and have tickets, but they’re not being towed. If somebody wants to park and has a ramp that needs to be laid out, they wouldn’t be able to,” Ross said, adding that the construction work may make the hilly campus even harder to navigate for someone with motor disabilities. 

  Students are able to report barriers to access using this form.

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