City Hall sued for lack of skytrain elevators

City Hall sued for lack of skytrain elevators

Wheelchair users are moving from an electric train station in Lat Phrao to the Civil Court on Ratchadaphisek Road to file the class-action lawsuit on inadequate elevators on the BTS skytrain system on Friday. (Photo by Pattanapong Hirunard)
Wheelchair users are moving from an electric train station in Lat Phrao to the Civil Court on Ratchadaphisek Road to file the class-action lawsuit on inadequate elevators on the BTS skytrain system on Friday. (Photo by Pattanapong Hirunard)

A group of 98 people with disabilities arrived at the Civil Court in Bangkok on Friday to file a lawsuit against the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) for damages worth 1,000 per person per day for failing to install enough elevators at its BTS skytrain stations.

The class-action suit came from Suporntum Monkolsawadi, a 50-year-old wheelchair user and secretary-general of the Redemptorist Foundation for People with Disabilities.

The former polio patient had asked the Administrative Court to order the BMA to install elevators and other facilities including special parking lots for people with disabilities at all 23 stations of the first-phase BTS system to ensure that the people had equal access to public transport.

On Jan 21, 2015, the Supreme Administrative Court ordered the BMA to complete the installation within one year, or Jan 21 last year. A year later, there are only three usable elevators in the system.

As the deadline had passed for one year on Friday, the BMA apparently infringed on the rights of the complainant, who set his compensation at 1,000 baht per day based on his extra expense and inconveniences resulting from the lack of elevators, according to the suit.

Accompanying Mr Suporntum, lawyer Worakorn Lairang, also a wheelchair user, said that 97 other people would seek to be co-plaintiffs in the lawsuit if the Civil Court accepted the case for trial.

If this is the case and the court ruled in their favour, the BMA would have to pay them compensation totalling 35.8 million baht as of Friday. 

The court would examine witnesses in the case and consider the complainant's request for court fee exemption on March 30.

On Jan 21, 2015, the Supreme Administrative Court ordered the BMA, which has hired Bangkok Mass Transit System Plc (BTS) to run skytrain services, to install a sufficient number of elevators at all 23 stations, as stated in the Interior Ministry's order on the welfare of people with disabilities.

All trains must also have one carriage which can easily accommodate people with disabilities. 

The BMA must ensure there is enough space for people travelling in wheelchairs in these carriages, with a minimum aisle width of 120cm, handrails on doors and easily visible handicap signage.

Earlier, the BMA explained that lifts had not been initially installed at all stations because there was no regulation on facilities for the disabled when the concession was signed in 1992.

The BMA already approved 200 million baht to install four lifts at each station, or 72 lifts altogether. The task was set for completion by the end of 2015, but it has been delayed as property owners near the stations have opposed the plan to construct lifts in front of their property, worrying it would "affect the good feng shui" of their businesses.

Lifts have already been provided by the BMA at all stations along the extended routes; from On Nut to Bearing and from Saphan Taksin to Bang Wa.

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