Elevators close pretty tight

In addition to the loss of my favorite accessible bathroom, the new door on our floor shuts me off from my elevator bank of choice.

The elevators I used to use stayed open a nice long time. This is key because my chair accelerates poorly.

With the set of elevators I use now, I have to be moving toward the elevator that opens. I try to guess which elevator that might be, but I am not psychic.

Even if the door right nest to me opens, if I have not started moving toward it beforehand, the doors start to close on me.

I tried to get into an elevator on the way home yesterday. I thought I'd be clever and just stop on the way into the elevator, let them close and then bounce open. It was clever, I thought, because too often when I barrel in and the doors start to close, they whack the less-than-super-stable wheelchair controller arm, make a big crash and then bounce open. This way they would just shut gently on the footplate and then bounce open.

You know it didn't work, though, right? Because it failed on several levels and I am lucky a co-worker was nearby to push the elevator down button again so thie doors opened.

Problem No. 1: Elevator doors -- at least those at work -- open only when the inside doors hit a barrier. My footplate did not extend far enough into the elevator for that. I should have been able to reach in and hit the inside doors except for ...

Problem No. 2: the excruciating pain of the outer elevator doors squishing my foot, which was off the footplate, between the footplate and one of the doors, which rendered me helpless.

I learned my lesson. Today I went full speed into the elevator. It still closed on the controller arm and I banged my knees and made a loud noise. But then the doors bounced open.