
If Chicago wins the 2016 Olympic Summer Games, it could be a moving experience for thousands of disabled people around the world.
That’s because a majority of the seats in the planned Olympic venue at Washington Park may be converted into wheelchairs for the destitute and disabled, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
Designers plan to make the 80,000 seat stadium collapsible so that it won’t take up as much space once the games – should Chicago land them – are finished. That means nearly 50,000 seats will go elsewhere. So they’re hatching a plan that would convert the remaining seats into permanent wheelchairs.
The idea belongs to Darren Brehm, a consultant for the Chicago 2016 bid team. Brehm has been wheelchair-bound ever since a 1990 car wreck left him paralyzed so he knows the value of this idea.