The site, and the places
Accessibility of This Site, and of the Places It Writes About
Two separate questions live on this page. Whether this website works for you, and whether the places in it do. The second one has honest answers that are sometimes no.
The site
Ordinary markup, a single stylesheet and one short script, with a second script only on the three pages carrying the flight search. None of that is a limitation anybody put up with: it was picked on purpose, and it is why everything below came almost free.
- Every control is reachable with a keyboard alone, and whatever holds focus wears a thick outline in the publication's darkest red rather than a faint halo.
- The page reads in a sensible order without the stylesheet. On a narrow screen the right hand rail moves to the end of the article, which is also where a screen reader meets it.
- Headings step by one and never skip, on every page.
- Alternative text on every plate says what the frame contains, instead of restating whatever the caption already said.
- The one moving thing on the site is a nine pixel fade as blocks arrive. A request for reduced motion switches it off entirely, and the content is fully visible without any script at all.
- Text sizes are relative, so browser zoom and a larger default size both work rather than breaking the layout.
- Body text is justified with hyphenation on a wide screen because that is the publication's setting, and it reverts to ordinary left aligned text below sixty rems, where justification would leave rivers of white space.
- Tables scroll inside their own box rather than pushing the page sideways. No page scrolls horizontally at any width.
- The storage notice sits in the flow of the document rather than floating over it, so it can never cover the header or trap focus behind an overlay.
- Form fields have real labels, errors are text next to the field rather than color alone, and a failed field is marked with an attribute a screen reader announces.
Color and contrast
The page ground is a mid tone paper rather than white, which is unusual and deliberate: it lowers glare and it is easier on a long read. Body text against it is well above the ratio required for normal text.
The publication's red is used for links, rules and section labels. It is dark enough to pass against the paper as text, and it is never the only signal for anything: a link is also underlined, an error is also words, a current navigation item is also marked in the markup.
What is not here
No captcha anywhere. No pop up, no interstitial, no autoplaying anything, no video, no audio and no notification request. Nothing on the site moves without being scrolled to, and nothing at all moves if you have asked your system for reduced motion.
The places, which is the harder question
This publication writes about industrial infrastructure, and a good deal of it is not step free. Pretending otherwise would be worse than saying so.
| Kind of vantage point | Honestly |
|---|---|
| High viaduct sidewalk | Usually step free along the deck, but reaching the deck can involve a long climb, and the wind is constant |
| Span sidewalk, fixed approach | Often step free and often narrow, with traffic close behind and no barrier beyond a curb line |
| Valley floor street end | Frequently no sidewalk at all, uneven asphalt, truck traffic, and a rail crossing to wait at |
| Pier or outer wall | A long walk out on uneven stone, no shelter, no seating, and no handrail for most of it |
Every individual piece in the watches opens with where you stand and what is uncomfortable about it, in that order, so the information you need to decide is in the first two lines rather than buried at the end.
If a place is genuinely worth it and genuinely difficult, the writing says both. If you want to ask about a specific one before setting out, [email protected] reaches the desk during hours and the answer will be the honest one.
If something here does not work for you
Write to [email protected] with what you were trying to do and what happened. This is one person and a small site, so a real fault gets fixed rather than logged, and you get told when it is done.