S.F. has zero electric-wheelchair charging stations. Users are frustrated.

"Fiona Hinze can see it coming when she spins around the streets of San Francisco: An indicator showing that her wheelchair battery is running out of juice. Hinze is always with someone when she's out with her power chair. When the battery dies, she switches on the manual mode, takes the chair out of gear, and asks her companion to push her chair - which weighs a couple hundred pounds, plus her body weight - to her car."

"Hinze, like other wheelchair users, keeps a mental map of possible charging locations: the library, friendly restaurants or cafes. Sometimes, chair users ask public-toilet attendants if they can plug into the city's outlets, even though that's against city rules. Wheelchair users are forced to strategize like this because San Francisco, unlike other even smaller cities, has zero public electric-wheelchair charging stations, according to a 2024 report presented to the Mayor's Disability Council under Mayor London Breed."

"Allen Jones, a wheelchair user and former District 5 supervisor candidate, was frustrated to see the city touting EV charging ports, for instance, while leaving electric-wheelchair users in the dust: San Francisco has more than 1,100 publicly accessible charging ports - a 470 percent increase since 2019 - for electric vehicles, and none for wheelchairs. The lack of charging ports means wheelchair users are often effectively confined to different parts of the city."

Wheelchair users in San Francisco face a complete absence of public electric-wheelchair charging stations, creating daily mobility challenges. Power-chair users anticipate battery depletion and depend on companions, manual-mode procedures, or push assistance to reach safety. Users maintain mental maps of potential charging spots such as libraries and friendly businesses and sometimes request access to city outlets despite official rules. A 2024 report found zero public charging stations for wheelchairs while the city expanded electric-vehicle chargers. City efforts to address the issue exist, but wheelchair users continue to experience limited progress and constrained access across neighborhoods.

Read at Mission Local