Airports: Show Me a Sign!

By: Jeff Moyer

Air travel is, for me, as for hundreds of thousands of others, a necessity. I travel frequently and deeply value the freedom and geographic barrier-removal it provides. Yet, in spite of my appreciation for air travel, airports per se have become an ever-more challenging navigation problem for me as I have lost vision. Due to their complexity and predictability, airports have long been a litmus test about how much vision I have lost, as I have slid down the inexorable tube of progressive blindness. When I had a fair amount of useful vision left, I could see enough to read jumbo gate signs, restroom signs at casual walking distance, and even signs designating concourses, baggage claim, and other critical wayfinding information. But as details of the visual world have fallen away, I have had to develop other strategies, not always successfully, to accomplish the routines associated with airport use. In 1975 I could still see large gate signs, but I could no longer read small restroom signs which were then in the middle of restroom doors.

In the mid 70's we in the low vision world witnessed a wonderful innovation in optical systems -- the development and manufacturing of the focusable telescope which could be variably focused on targets at distances, as close as fifteen inches, unlike earlier optical aids which required binocular-type focal distance beyond fifteen feed or so. This highly versatile and flexible tool meant that I could again read signs, regardless of the distance I was from the sign! I was empowered, delighted and home free. Shortly after the introduction of this optical marvel I was connecting on a transcontinental trip from San Francisco to New York. We stopped in Denver or Houston or wherever and I deplaned to relieve myself and stretch my legs. I had observed people going in and out of a door, and I suspected that it was the men's room. With confidence I pulled out my telescope remininscent of the old pirate spyglass to read the sign across the concourse aisle from me, which I suspected might be the men's restroom. This was the re-gaining of an old and valued freedom, to find the bathroom without assistance. Peering through my miniature telescope I trained it on the center of the possible entrance seeking to find and read the plastic strip sign. The device had to be twisted into focus, which took a few seconds. As I finally got the optical system into focus and was slowly beginning to read the sign, I suddenly saw the door swing open and I stared in clear focus into the face of a very angry, contemputuous and intense woman who was just then exiting the women's room door and was glaring into the telescope of what she thought was a pervert trying to sneak a peek into the women's restroom. Red-faced and stunned, I hurriedly put the device away, and attempted to look casual as I strode down the concourse, hoping she would not call security.

In intervening years, the elusive target of restroom signs has proven to be an ever more hard-to-find golden fleece of airport travel, and other adventures have suggested the problem of lack of access to this mundane and universal airport necessity. LET ME GIVE SOME EXAMPLES.

Let's start with the new ADA specified restroom sign. They are very easy to see and read if you know where to look, and if you can see and read. But the question arises if you have seriously compromised vision, where are they? To make matters even more problematic, one airport planner put the darn things against the far wall of the entrance to the restoom, so that if you have to get right on top of it, as I did at the time I encountered the sign, I had already made the commitment and was standing in the actual restroom entrance hallway. O fcourse, it took two tries to find the right "accessible sign". In Cleveland, they decided not to bother with the tactile aspect of the sign itself and had signs produced that are nearly completely flat. But recongnizing that they were supposed to have a tactile element, the innovated a sort of peel off universal figure and letters. Forget Braille. That might be a creative alternative, but it does defeat the non-visual aspect of the sign.

About three years ago, I was departing from Cleveland Hopkins, my home airport and one with which I was very familiar. However, recent airport renovations had re-configured the airport layout, and I was uncertain about the exact path of travel from the airline check-in concourse to the hall, which lead to the gate concourses and restrooms. I asked another traveler if the men's room was down the new hallway and to the right, and he so confirmed my guess. I thanked him and went on my way. I transversed the thirty yards or so of the connecting hallway, turned right and approached the restroom, my first destination. Above the din of travelers and musak and airport announcements, I heard, along with hundreds of others the booming voice of my new friend. "OKAY BUDDY, TURN TO THE LEFT, THE TOILET IS RIGHT THERE... KEEP GOING, ON THE LEFT... RIGHT THERE, THE TOILET IS RIGHT THERE!" My self-appointed guardian still stood where I had left him, and he observed my movements from the top of a short flight of stairs, which gave him the vantage point he needed to guide me from a distance. I quietly acknowledged, with a wave and a murmured, "Thanks, thanks a lot."

Then there was the time in the Dallas Fort Worth Airport that I boarded the electric cart, and joined several blue haired ladies traveling as a group. I discretely asked the cart driver to drop me at the nearest restroom to my gate, my practice when time allowed. As you can imagine, I enjoy the independence and even the challenge of finding the actual gate in short range, sort of the glory lap of airport travel. Passers-by are willing impromptu guides, and the distance from restroom to gate is never far, and so I asked my golf cart chauffeur to drop me at the entrance of the male gender room of rest. He turned and in a loud voice rich with cowboy twang shouted to the ladies, "You ladies don't mind waiting for this feller while he uses the toilet, do you ladies? Y'all have plenty of time before yer'all flight!"

Unnerved I quietly implored him to merely drop me off, and I explained that I did not require the courtesy of a full cart wait. "Ladies," my persistent support person continued, "This feller doesn't want us to wait for him while he is in the toilet! Tell him we don't mind."

Now more stridently, I sternly told him that I neither wanted nor needed him nor them to wait for me, just drop me off, PLEASE!"

We drove along in silence until the driver pulled the cart over and shouted over his shoulder, "The toilet's over there. I'll ask this gate agent to keep an eye out for you when you come out of the toilet." Now quite flushed and feeling a combination of relief to be done with him and consternation at his most public pronouncements, I found the door to the empty restroom, located a stall, and settled into my anticipated reverie. My quietude was short-lived as I quickly suspected something was terribly wrong when I heard the clicking of oncoming high heels, and women's voices in conversation. The unavoidable realization struck that I was in the right convenience, but in the wrong, wrong room. After hurriedly considering my options, I decided to finish my process and then, when the crowd seemed to clear, find the exit and blend back into concourse pedestrian traffic. Unfortunately, the gate agent and apparently everyone else waiting at the gate across from the women's restroom had watched me go in, and indeed had kept an eye out for my return. But no salutations were forthcoming; the place was silent as a tomb.

Then, just last month, my wife and I were in St. Louis, and she directed me into the restroom opening and told me to turn right. The way was temporarily blocked with other men and their luggage, but I perceived that this was one of those restrooms which could be accessed from either end of the partition forming the entrance. I turned left, proceeded, but was abruptly turned around by a woman exiting the women's room, which shared the opening. So much for direction improv. There are actually other examples of this string of public embarrassments caused by navigating environments without accessible signs, but you get the picture.

Now enter Talking Signs. Talking Signs broadcast human voice sign information over infrared light, which can be heard only by travelers with receivers, who use the signs as precise beacons for sign location and information. Talking Signs are silent, invisible and unobtrusive to those not needing spoken sign information, but for those of us requiring directional audible signs, they offer beacons of simple information, which transform the unfamiliar into the navigable and obvious. When in settings where Talking Signs are part of the environment, all destinations become obvious and accurate, and independent travel opens like a magic door. I know that it won't be long before all major airports are signed for everyone. Today we consider it right and normal for people who get around in wheelchairs to have access to public buildings via ramps and accessible phones, restrooms and other amenities. Why not provide real access for travelers who can't read print signs as well? A city could provide no more universal welcome mat. So come on airport designers and managers, give us a sign, an accessible and useful Talking Sign.