In 2009, then 33-year-old Sasha Blair-Goldensohn was walking through New York’s Central Park on his regular commute to the Google offices in Chelsea when a 100-pound rotten tree branch struck him.
With a fractured skull and damaged spinal cord, the father of two and a rising star engineer at Google Maps would have died if not for the help of a doctor jogging by, who kept him alive until an ambulance arrived. He spent a month in a coma and over a year in rehab before returning to work, partially paralyzed and now using a wheelchair.
That’s when Blair-Goldensohn realized: “This thing that I’d been working on forever, Google Maps, what so many people use to get around, it didn’t work for me. If I wanted to go to meet up at a cafe, I could find out the hours, beautiful pictures of the food, I couldn’t find out if I could get in the door. I thought, ‘Wait, we’re the place everybody uses. Couldn’t we do more?’ We could, and we did.”
First, he became an advocate for better transit after realizing part of his commute to work, a subway ride, was unavailable to him because there was no elevator. He worked with the nonprofit Disability Rights Advocates to bring a lawsuit against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and in 2023, a judge approved a settlement requiring the MTA to create stair-free travel in at least 95% of subway stations by 2055. A second part of the suit, requiring the MTA to maintain the elevators, is still pending.
Blair-Goldensohn also led disability awareness at Google, both in showing wheelchair-accessible routes on public transit and “walking” routes, and through a tiny wheelchair icon awarded to places that are accessible. Blair-Goldensohn now has the title of Google Maps disability inclusion leader. And many of the 120 million so-called “local guides” for Google Maps around the world who crowdsource information from over 50 million locations now contribute information about accessibility.
Robin Young visited Blair-Goldensohn in the Upper West Side Manhattan apartment his progressive journalist parents bought in 1973, where Blair-Goldensohn has lived his entire life, to learn how the Google Maps app works, and to go for a ‘walk and roll,’ to see the city from his wheelchair user point of view.
4 questions with Sasha Blair-Goldensohn
You say, like most of us, you didn’t think about wheelchairs all that much and didn’t think there were many users.
“Yes … Sid Lewinsky, one of my mentors and cofounder of Disability Rights Advocates, he said, ‘Sasha, if you go to a city and you don’t see people in wheelchairs, it doesn’t mean they’re not there, it means they’re stuck at home or in hospitals and they can’t get out.’ My accident was in 2009, but this community around me, around us, was always there. And it has buoyed me.”
You took us past a wonderful Irish pub in New York, the kind that dot every block. Talk about hindrances we might not think of and how the Google Maps app helps.
“Stairs. So, for instance, many small New York pubs are below the sidewalk level, they are a few steps down, and they are fun, but I won’t be booking my next birthday party there. On the Google Maps app, when you open to a place like one of my favorites, Kossar’s Bagels and Bialys on West 72nd Street, you can see a little tiny wheelchair icon where the hours and average prices are found. That tells me I can get in the door—no stairs, it’s accessible. But then you can find out, is there parking if someone travels in a wheelchair van? But also, how’s the bathroom? I see on the Kossar’s site there is still a question mark about whether it has an accessible bathroom. I know it does, so I’m going to check that as a yes. Now it says ‘submit,’ so I will hit submit. Then my contribution will be vetted using AI technology, and it will appear on the app.”
There were at least a few elevators in the New York subway system when you had your accident. What led you to become such an active part of demanding more?
“Like many, I thought I just wouldn’t be able to ride public transit. There are buses, but there are few wheelchair spots on them. Then I visited Boston and saw there were elevators in almost every T stop, their city train system. And I said ‘Wow, you can do this?’ Back in New York, I joined in protests at different subway stops with the Elevator Action Group and became a plaintiff in the Disability Rights Advocates lawsuit. We won in our demand for subway elevators in at least 95% of stations. The part of the lawsuit that’s still pending requires the maintenance of those elevators—and that’s so important. Our research shows elevators are broken 30 times a day. Wheelchair riders may arrive at a station and not be able to get on the train, or worse, they’re in an elevator that breaks, or they are on the train and arrive at a station with a broken elevator. They either have to get back on the train and try another station, or —as I’ve been able to do — rely on good Samaritans to carry me in the wheelchair up flights of stairs.
These elevators are expensive. What do you say to people who say it’s a small community, those in wheelchairs. Make the case that the cost is worth it.
“We believe the price will come down. But also, I remember my mom telling me about struggling years ago to get a stroller up and down curbs and stairs. That’s the curb cut effect. Curb cuts were mandated for people with wheelchairs, but they benefit people with strollers, delivery carts, luggage. And we were in the elevator with you at the 72nd Street station, and also a family with kids and a stroller, someone with luggage … there could also be someone with a bike or a hand cart. It benefits everyone. And for me, in a wheelchair, it’s a chance to talk to people I’d never get to see. And I would say to people who ask about the cost… someday you will need one. You or someone you love. You will need it.
“Despite having grown up in a household of activists, I didn’t feel the urgency myself. But it finds you. And it found me. It lets me be out here with more confidence.”
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Karyn Miller-Medzon produced this interview for broadcast. Robin Young edited it. Grace Griffin adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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