Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi railway station was monitored for its accessibility for people with disabilities
Within the framework of the proceedings initiated by the Ombudsman following a complaint from a disabled person from Dnipro city regarding the lack of accessibility of the transition from the Central Railway Station Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi to the Southern Railway Station for people in wheelchairs, the Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi railway station was monitored.
The monitoring group included representatives of the Secretariat of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, the Ministry of Infrastructure, the executive body of the Kyiv City Council (Kyiv City State Administration), the National Assembly of Disabled People of Ukraine, and PJSC Ukrainian Railways.
As established in the course of the monitoring, over the past two years, PJSC «Ukrainian Railways» has taken a number of measures aimed at ensuring the accessibility of the Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi station. At the same time, one of the main problems remains the lack of physical accessibility for persons with disabilities who use wheelchairs to get to the territory of the South Station from the Central Station. There are also no lifts for people with limited mobility at the South Station and Vokzalna metro station.
During the monitoring, it was found that the action plan of PJSC Ukrainian Railways to ensure accessibility for persons with disabilities provided for the purchase and installation of such lifts, but due to the need to allocate significant amounts of funding for capital construction, the resolution of this issue was postponed indefinitely.
Despite certain developments in accessibility for people with visual impairments, and while paying tribute to the work of the Kyiv Railway Station escort service, the monitoring confirmed the need to create accessibility conditions for blind people that would allow them to use the station's services independently.
The monitoring also found, among other things, that the system of notification of the need to provide assistance and escort to a person with a disability (based on telegrams or advance telephone notifications) introduced at the station does not fully guarantee that the person will receive timely assistance and depends on many factors.
Based on the results of the monitoring, a number of proposals were developed to ensure accessibility for people with disabilities, which were sent to the management of PJSC Ukrainian Railways for consideration and appropriate response.
According to the Secretariat
The Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights
