Presentation to Washington NFB Convention, November 4, 2006
Presented by Jeff Moyer, Vice President, Talking Signs Inc.

Thank you for the opportunity to address you this afternoon.  I speak to you as a member of NFB, a long time champion of the independence and dignity of blind people and as one who has committed over a decade of my life to RIAS, or remote infrared audible signage.  That is the descriptive name of the technology that provides orientation and wayfinding information through installed transmitters that broadcast directional, repeating messages for those of us who can't see printed signs.  For everyone, mobility is a personal responsibility.  Orientation is a public responsibility.  That is why cities, states and highway departments have work groups that develop and maintain signs.  Everyone needs them.

I'm not saying that you and I can't learn orientation to unfamiliar public areas.  We have to do it all the time.  For example, when I get to a new hotel when I am on the road, I usually spend the first hour or more learning my way around the place.  That's what I did last year when I was speaking in Washington D.C.  I had learned the rather tricky travel route from the elevator to the restaurant off the lobby. 

But when I went down for dinner, the crowd of guests that had just arrived with their suitcases everywhere, loud conversations and standing groups made my well-planned travel route impossible.  I couldn't hear the fountain.  I couldn't find the edge of the carpet.  I couldn't hear the front desk, restaurant or anything else.  I was lost.  If the place had had Talking Signs installed, I would have been successful in my independent travel to the restaurant, or any other location.  As it was, I had to find someone to help me navigate the lobby in order to find the restaurant. 

This technology was invented in San Francisco by a blind engineer many of you may know, or know through his writing.  Bill Gerrey works at The Smith Kettlewell Rehabilitation Engineering Research and Training Center and published The Smith Kettlewell Technical File for many years.  Perhaps you learned how to accomplish some of your own technical goals or even developed technical skills through Bill's direction. I recently wrote a chapter on the history of blind children in this country since colonial times, for a text book.  I conducted an oral history with Bill for the work.  He spoke about attending an NFB convention in San Francisco when he was a little boy with his dad, who also was blind.  He recalled what an impression that made on him, to see the pride and independence of so many fellow blind people. 

Bill was inspired to develop remote infrared audible signage after walking home from a social gathering one night and losing count of the number of blocks he had walked.  He spent hours lost in his own neighborhood because of that mental lapse.  I've done the same thing, perhaps you have too.  So Bill and other engineers at Smith Kettlewell conceptualized RIAS technology 25 years ago.  And today, Seattle has won the first Federal grant to put the signs throughout Seattle Sound Transit stations and on all of their buses and trains. There will also be RIAS systems put at key intersections.

When one is in a fully accessible environment, what a difference it makes!  Let me tell you a brief story.

A couple of years ago I was speaking in Palo Alto and was going to take the train to San Francisco
to meet Bill Gerrey, Jerry Kuns and other blind friends. Mike Cole, the director of the California Orientation Center for the Blind, planned to meet me at the CalTrain station and we were going to travel to Jerry's for the gathering.  When I got off the train, I used my receiver to find the door to the station off the platform.  Inside, I heard Mike's receiver as he stood and waited for me by the door.  We greeted as old friends do.  Mike needed change for the bus, I needed the restroom.  We agreed to meet by the lunch counter.  

In the big open train station, using my receiver and the talking sign transmitters, I easily found the men's room, water fountain and the lunch counter without help.  Then Mike and I agreed to exit through the Fourth Street side and catch the bus on Fourth.  We started talking about our families and what had happened in our lives since we had been together years before.  Two blind men, walking and talking, reading signs and enjoying the day.  Outside, we found the street crossing, monitored the walk/don't walk signal with our receivers, crossed safely and found the bus stop.  Then access ended and we had to rely on sighted folks to catch the right bus. 

As Bill Gerrey has said, of course, this is refusable technology.  If you don't want it, you don't have to use it.  But you are going to be able to experience full RIAS access very soon in Seattle.  Let me tell you, it's a thrill.

Let's talk about street crossings for just a minute.  I don't need to tell you that it's become much more dangerous for us in the past twenty years.  Gradual curb cuts make it hard sometimes to know you are even entering the street.  Complex traffic control systems, sometimes triggered by traffic sensors, make crosswalk patterns less predictable.  Cars are becoming more quiet.  In fact, my girlfriend's hybrid is totally silent when it stops.  Right turn on red makes pedestrian crossings even more difficult. 

When an intersection is RIAS equipped, though, you know where the street begins because you step under the sign telling you the intersection and block number and then can spot the pedestrian signal across the street.  And one knows exactly where the crosswalk is and when it is safe to cross, provided someone isn't turning right in front of you in a car that had been silent.  We still have to use all of our mobility skills and pay attention.  But as I have gotten older, I have lost a lot of high frequency hearing and developed tinnitus.  I really appreciate the information I get from RIAS systems.

RIAS systems are on the buses in Colorado Springs and Lansing Michigan as well.  In East Lansing, home of Michigan State University, the blind students, like everyone else, have to use public transportation just to get to class on the vast MSU campus.  There are about 30 blind students and they rely on the RIAS transmitters on the buses to know what bus is coming.  In fact, a number of them have independently given up paratransit for the regular buses thanks to RIAS access.  Talking with them it is easy to forget that RIAS isn't the norm everywhere.

I want to take questions from you this afternoon.  But before I do, I want to suggest that RIAS does not diminish our integrity or independence at all.  In fact, it increases our freedom to travel where and when we choose.  I hope you can each get to Seattle as the RIAS transmitters get installed and the system becomes integrated between trains, light rail and buses.  Access is a public right, orientation is a civil right.  I look forward to working with you towards our continued freedom to work, travel and live independently in a world that provides signs for everyone.  Thank you.