Respond to prefers-color-scheme dark in app web views

Follow section front redirects in Spectrum

Enable NLP source in PCS for load testing

Switch off the News Alerts Survey Widget when we have enough responses

Poll to determine if new LUF updates are available

Allows the winning A/B test variant to be turned on without Spectrum deployment

Show infinite scrolling sections in Assembler MultiView

Show option for NLP article summaries in Action Bar

Show NLP summaries collection recirc on article pages

A general feature flag for Recipe Features that aren't yet released

Feature flag for media team features that aren't yet released

Use new Orca video player for preroll plugin in Spectrum

Show the snow tracker (instead of the heat tracker) on Spectrum

The world’s coolest hotels want to tell you a story

6 Airbnb red flags to spot before you make a booking mistake

Flying budget airlines might not be as cheap as it seems

‘Never Trump?’ ‘Never Biden’ voters might loom larger.

How Jim Jordan tried to connect the dots on Biden’s $8 million book deal

Lawyer preparation suggests Trump won’t testify in New York trial

Would you eat this weird sandwich? Barry Enderwick would. 

She finished chemo then got a medical degree: ‘The dream is real now’

Puppy abandoned with heart-rending note is adopted, named Minerva

Carolyn Hax: Friends say to break other plans to avoid offending new man

Ask Amy: Should my husband get a say in what I do with my inheritance?

Ask Amy: Can’t a single woman eat alone without interruption?

Blue Origin to fly again as space tourism struggles to get off the ground

Why this company’s biggest fans turned against it

These ISIS news anchors are AI fakes. Their propaganda is real.

In photos: The 149th running of the Preakness Stakes

Book Tour: At home with Amor Towles

Gov. Doug Burgum speaks in support of Trump

Biden’s false claim that inflation was 9 percent when he took office

Did Obamacare ‘massively’ increase the cost of health care?

The other side of Punta Cana: A crackdown on Haitians

Top White House aide to meet Netanyahu, who is under political pressure

Live updates: Rescuers struggle to find helicopter carrying Iranian president

The problem with diversity statements — and what to do about them

Russia shows resilience. There is more to do for Ukraine.

Trump promises tax cuts and fewer rules. CEOs shouldn’t fall for it.

Kyle Finnegan’s rare hiccup helps Phillies to a 4-3 win in 10 innings

Joey Gallo returns, but Nats endure another quiet offensive night

Walter Johnson’s jersey from 1920 showdown with Babe Ruth sold at auction

Trump

USDOT

Kelly Buckland grew up on a potato farm and cattle ranch in eastern Idaho. He rode horses, fixed fences and branded cattle, a young cowboy like his father.

Then, at age 16, he broke his neck diving into the Snake River in Idaho Falls, leaving him in a wheelchair for more than half-a-century.

Buckland is now the disability policy adviser at the U.S. Department of Transportation, where he is tapping decades of personal experience — including being dropped and bruised while being carried into airplanes — to try to improve travel for people with disabilities.

“I could have easily drowned that day, and I didn’t,” said Buckland, 69, who went on to get a degree in social work and spent decades working in disability rights organizations. “Having survived it, it made me a much better person.”

The interview was edited for length and clarity.

Q: What parts of the U.S. transportation system are providing a welcoming environment for people with disabilities, and what areas are doing the worst?

A: It’s the same ones, almost. Air travel is absolutely the worst. I mean, people are getting significant injuries just trying to board an airplane. They’re being dropped by the people who transfer them from their chair to an aisle chair to then the airplane seat.

Their chairs are getting damaged and destroyed, more than 10,000 every year, and that’s based on airline reports. I think some don’t get reported and the numbers are actually higher.

However, my experience is airports actually really do a good job. The restrooms are accessible. Airports have really stepped up.

Q: What are some of the indignities people in wheelchairs have faced in planes? And what’s the administration trying to do about that?

A: Two things brought me to the department. One of them was the infrastructure bill and the opportunity to have this huge impact on the built environment.

The other thing was air travel. We want to have wheelchair spots on airplanes so you don’t have to transfer out. When you get on a bus, you get on a train, you get in a cab, any other form of transportation, you stay in your chair. Airlines are the only one where you have to surrender your mobility device at the gate. It would be a real sea change if you could just drive your chair on the airplane, lock down and you’re set to go.

The Transportation Research Board did a study and determined, obviously, it’s feasible. Now the Federal Aviation Administration has picked up the research. I wanted to be part of making that happen for people with disabilities.

I love to fly. But I’ve had to stop, as have others. People can’t afford to have their wheelchairs damaged. And the older I get, when they injure me, it takes me longer to heal.

Courtesy of Kelly Buckland

Q: What has happened to you?

A: They bounce you against the arm rests on the seats or drag you over them, scraping your skin and bruising you. They have dropped me onto the aisle chair really hard, which then causes bruises.

And they will end up, more often than not, because they don’t lift you correctly, pulling your pants off. It’s not just me. A woman I know was dropped three times getting to Mexico.

Last month, United <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/united-airlines-30-mln-settlement-with-quadriplegic-mans-family-2023-08-23/" target=_blank>settled a case for $30 million</a> after a passenger with a wheelchair and a ventilator got significant brain damage and is in a coma. [In a statement, United said: “Our top priority is to provide a safe journey for all our customers, especially those who require additional assistance or the use of a wheelchair. We are pleased to share that this matter has settled.”]

Hopefully we can reduce some of these injuries and indignities. We got the bathroom rule done. It requires accessible bathrooms on single-aisle aircraft.

We’re now working on another rule that is going to make it a “per se” violation if you break someone’s chair. Right now, the wording is a little fuzzy. Airlines will argue, even if they damage your chair, that they didn’t violate the existing rules. This would make it so if they break your chair, they’ve violated the rule. It can’t be questioned anymore. That’s what “per se” means.

It’s also going to require training on transferring people to make sure they do it in a safe manner. It’s in the final drafting stages.

Q: What inspired you to become involved in this work?

A: After I broke my neck, they flew me to the rehab hospital in Boise. I was so impressed by the people that provided assistance there, like physical therapists and the nurses and all of the people that work there. I had grown up on a farm. I was used to physical labor. I didn’t know you could make a living just helping others. That really impressed me. So that’s what I wanted to do.

I’m a quadriplegic and have used a wheelchair for 53 years now since my spinal cord injury. I’ve seen a lot of change in regards to disability. I’ve been doing this stuff since 1981. Things look so much different now. That’s what helps keep you driving to make sure that more stuff continues to get done.

Back in 1981, when you went out to eat, none of the restrooms were accessible. A lot of the restaurants weren’t accessible. We had a lot of resistance to putting curb cuts in. They would talk about how the gutters wouldn’t be able to control the storm water anymore, blah blah blah. Any excuses, right? I mean, I got kicked out of movie theaters because I was told I was a fire hazard sitting in the aisle. Now you have recourse. You can file suit.

Q: What difference will the 2021 infrastructure law make for people with disabilities?

A: There’s so much going on that is going to impact the lives of everybody, including people with disabilities. There’s a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/12/20/transit-station-accessibility-grants/" target=_blank>$1.75 billion program</a> to make legacy rail stations accessible to people with disabilities. Subway systems in Chicago and New York are prime examples.

A bunch of grants are going to airports, with priority given to those including accessibility issues. We’re replacing Amtrak trains in the coming years so people with disabilities can reach the lounge car and the observation car and all of those things they currently don’t have access to.

But if you don’t look at the entire infrastructure law, you’re missing the larger picture, because all of the infrastructure we are building includes conformance with the Americans With Disabilities Act and other standards. This time, the roads and bridges and sidewalks and airports and train stations are going to be built accessible.

The bipartisan infrastructure law is going to make the biggest dent in this in my lifetime. I mean, it's hard to compare it to the entire ADA, but it's going to be close to that sort of an event.

Q: This is a terribly broad question, but in what ways has your professional and personal life been affected by your disability, for the good or the bad, and how have you sought to tap those experiences?

A: Oh, in every way. I’m a much better person because of my disability, in every conceivable way. I’m way more well-rounded. I probably would have never attended college.

I would have just been a — I’m not trying to say it’s less important or anything, but I probably would be a potato farmer in Idaho, because that was sort of where my life was headed. I was going to probably pick up the mantle from my father.

So I got a better education than I would have. I’ve had much different life experiences. It made me ponder on, and consider, and try to adopt how to be a better person. And it made me interested in leaving the world a better place than I found it.

Q: It’s amazing to think how those things shape a person.

A: If you talk to most people with disabilities, they’ll tell you that, too, that they’re a better person for it. It’s not a tragic event. It’s actually, in a lot of cases, something that makes your life better as you move on.

So you look back on it and you really end up being kind of glad you did get a disability. You see what I’m saying? Because it’s fulfilled your life in ways that you would never have longed for.

Q: That’s pretty remarkable.

A: I’m not encouraging you to go out and get one.

Stanford University, BA in political science

Michael Laris writes about the transformation of the U.S. transportation system. He has covered government accountability and was a reporter in Beijing.