10 Great Cities for the Physically Disabled

6. Chicago
Old, snowy, vertical: How did Chicago get considered for this list? Part of it stems from the Chicago Transit Authority, which made more than 90 of its 145 rail stations ADA compliant and offers discounted fares to wheelchair users. The city's extensive health care infrastructure comes in handy as well, but the Healthy Community Mapping System that the University of Illinois is creating for the city to track the actual accessibility of buildings, fitness centers, sidewalks and stores will be a bit more helpful. The system will tell users where amenities are best and where obstacles such as steep lips on sidewalks or narrow doors will be a problem.

5. Portland, Ore.
The Legacy Health System, Oregon Health & Science University Hospital and other health care facilities give plenty of options for care, but the myriad means of reaching those facilities is what makes Portland so accessible. The city's buses, MAX light rail trains and streetcars all accommodate wheelchairs, but the TriMet transportation system's Lift service provides riders more than 250 minibuses and more than a dozen cars to take them around the city.

4. Denver
There was a time Denver was a big, sprawling, transit-deprived mess that was tough for just about anyone to navigate, but that time has long since passed. The Regional Transportation District has expanded its bus and rail offerings and made all of it wheelchair accessible with priority seating. It also offers an Access-a-ride program that takes wheelchair riders anywhere within a three-quarter-mile radius of its transit system.

3. Reno, Nev.
The Biggest Little City In The World can get pretty cold in the winter and windy all year long, but there's very little precipitation and very little to keep folks from getting around. The Regional Transportation Commission's wheelchair-accessible bus and bus rapid transit lines only helps by offering reduced fares for passengers with disabilities. RTC Access buses help shrink the city a bit as well by providing paratransit service in the city's center as well as some of its outlying areas.

2. Albuquerque, N.M.
It's tough to argue with those 50- and 60-degree temperatures in the winter, but Albuquerque's got a lot more to offer its wheelchair-using residents than pleasant weather. It's home to the best health care New Mexico has to offer and counts University of New Mexico Hospital, Presbyterian Hospital and Lovelace Women's Hospital among its premier facilities. The city's ABQ Ride bus and bus rapid transit services also chip in by being 100% ADA compliant, offering discounted fares and providing SunVan curb-to-curb paratransit to any point in the city.

1. Seattle
The city is synonymous with rain and is so hilly that some of its first roads were created in areas where loggers slid trees down to the waterfront. Fortunately, Sound Transit's bus and light rail lines are wheelchair accessible, discounted and supplemented by paratransit van service. Metro Transit, meanwhile, offers a shared ride program, a map of accessible downtown routes and reduced fares. This not only helps improve access in a city that's notoriously tough to navigate, but opens up clear lanes to facilities such as Harborview Medical Center, Virginia Mason Medical Center, Swedish Medical Center, University of Washington Medical Center and the VA.

-- Written by Jason Notte in Boston.

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Jason Notte is a reporter for TheStreet. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Esquire.com, Time Out New York, the Boston Herald, the Boston Phoenix, the Metro newspaper and the Colorado Springs Independent. He previously served as the political and global affairs editor for Metro U.S., layout editor for Boston Now, assistant news editor for the Herald News of West Paterson, N.J., editor of Go Out! Magazine in Hoboken, N.J., and copy editor and lifestyle editor at the Jersey Journal in Jersey City, N.J.

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