Viðey: Not Exactly Wheelchair Accessible

The chairperson of Iceland’s MND Society has harshly criticised the City of Reykjavík for scheduling events on the island of Viðey, despite the island being more or less inaccessible to the wheelchair-bound.

RÚV reports that not everyone has been happy with the full schedule of events the city has hosted on Viðey this summer. Guðjón Sigurðsson, the chairperson of the MND Society of Iceland, told reporters that the island is virtually inaccessible to wheelchairs.

Despite the fact that many previous mayors had pledged to make the island more accessible, he says, nothing has been done, regardless of the mayor’s party affiliation.

Port Director Gísli Gíslason said that in order to make Viðey wheelchair accessible, numerous changes would have to be made to both ports, as well as to the boats that ferry people there and back. These changes would be both very involved and expensive.

Guðjón dismissed these points as irrelevant, saying it is completely out of bounds for the City of Reykjavík to schedule events on the island that a large group of people could not possibly physically access.

“It’s possible to solve this problem in a simple way or an expensive way,” he told reporters. “But they are obliged to ensure that everyone has access to the harbours of Faxaflói [Bay].”