"Did you see how hard that was?" For 56-year-old Ndieme Lame, getting on the bus alone on Wednesday, August 21, in Paris proved impossible: The slope was too steep. Two extra pairs of arms were needed to take her electric wheelchair on each side and push it. At a time when official speeches are repeating that the Olympic and Paralympic Games represent an acceleration in terms of disability awareness, this scene, a fragment of the daily life of a person with reduced mobility in the French capital, bears witness to the fact that there is still a long way to go. For example, wheelchair users can take twice or even three times as long to get around as able-bodied people.

Despite investments made in recent years by the RATP Paris transport operator and France's national train company, SNCF, as well as the City of Paris, accessibility on public transport remains "insufficient," said Lame. Born in Dakar to a Senegalese mother and French father, she was diagnosed with polio at 11 months. A Parisian since 2001, the former supermarket cashier, who is about to retrain as a craftsworker, has been wheelchair-bound since 2013.

During the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Lame, who has been a member of the APF France Handicap association for some 20 years, was one of 300 people selected by the organization to serve as a volunteer. During the Olympic period, she worked at the Stade de France, in Saint-Denis north of Paris, as a "spectator service" team member, a role she will take on again during the Paralympic Games.

On a recent afternoon, she took us on a tour of her neighborhood in the 15^th arrondissement – Lame lives there, with her husband and daughter, in a home adapted for disabled people – and in the southwest of Paris.

It all started with the tramway, her favorite means of transport, with a station just a few meters from her home. She prefers it for its ease of access: There are no obstacles to reach the platform or the train. In around 10 minutes on August 21, she reached Porte d'Orléans, in the 14^th arrondissement, where she connected with métro line 4.

There's the first obstacle: The elevator down to the platform is "small, far too small," said Lame, who had moved as far forward as possible to prevent her bag and rear wheel from blocking the doors. Once downstairs, she passed through the gates adapted for people with disabilities.

Line 4 is one of the few in the network, along with automatic lines 1 and 14, that is wheelchair-accessible. On the train, which was almost empty in the early afternoon, she settled into a special seat before getting off at the Barbara station west of Paris, where she had to take two different elevators to reach the surface.

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