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Canada gets an ADA
Written by Gordo on Tuesday, August 26, 2008
I’ve stated many times that I wish that Canada had a policy similar to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), because there’s no federal legislation that forces institutions and companies to make their services available to those with disabilities. Obviously, from my perspective, the most significant problem lies in physical access from a wheelchair.
What pisses me off most is how some companies or institutions cannot imagine access from a wheelchair, and stop working at providing access when something is deemed “good enough.” Often, I wonder if there is much thought at all when planning these types of things.
The one thing I was upset about today was with public transit in my hometown, in the Vancouver area. Prior to this year, the City of Vancouver operated both low-floor accessible buses and older high-floor inaccessible electric trolley buses. It was a long time coming, but the old trolleys were finally phased out this year, replaced by accessible low-floor trolleys.
One of the people I know, who works with TransLink (the public transit agency that operates in the Vancouver area), was being a bit sentimental last night about the old trolleys. I said something along the lines of, “I was glad to see these go, because they offered no accessibility to people with disabilities.” The trolleys ran mostly north-south routes, which meant that for wheelchair users, you might have to make a 10-km detour.
That guy then went on the defensive, and was adamant on keeping the 20-year-old trolleys around, saying that the system would still be accessible if they alternate between accessible and inaccessible trolleys for those routes. That, in turn, made me a bit upset, because that means providing better service to some people while denying the better service to others. For example, if it was 15 minutes per bus, then why should able-bodied people wait for 15 minutes while disabled people wait for 30 minutes? And with the ridership levels in the area, there’s no guarantee that the bus won’t be full or packed with people.
There’s also the fact that TransLink often has buses with non-operational wheelchair lifts or ramps, but puts them on the road anyway. I was a victim of this once. I was waiting for a bus (which was non-trolley and supposedly fully accessible) in a service area where it was 10 minutes per bus. Two buses came with broken lifts, turning a 10-minute wait into a 30-minute wait. So imagine if that was a trolley route. How many more minutes would a person in a wheelchair have to wait? Meanwhile, able-bodied people can take any of those trips. This is discrimination at its worst.
When I was in California (Orange County and Los Angeles), I was amazed at how the ADA forced public transit agencies to comply with everything. Whenever a bus’ ramp or lift broke down, they immediately took it off the road and brought in another bus to continue the route. A lot of this has to do with the fact that the ADA is driven by civil rights, and people can often sue over ADA violations. Here in Canada, there’s no such legislation, and if there is an accessibility issue like this, then it’s just too bad.
The TransLink guy said that if the inaccessible buses were kept on the road, it’d provide better service levels for everyone and increase revenues to pay for new buses and whatnot. But for those who know TransLink’s ways, that rarely happens. They don’t increase services until there is bad press or if a public figure speaks out. Recently, they started to provide better services for the South of Fraser area, but only because the mayors there spoke up about how half the area’s population lives there but there isn’t adequate bus service. It’s this “everything’s good enough until someone complains” attitude that plagues TransLink, Vancouver, and much of this country, and this attitude is almost encouraged by a lack of an ADA-like policy.
I may not be “truly” disabled. But in my wheelchair, I face many of the same problems, and it’s about time something is done about this. Those in the “real” disabled community may not like us, but they can’t ignore the fact that for disability rights, there is something to be said about strength in numbers. If a “real” disabled person came to me and wanted to use me in their fight for accessibility, I’d help them in a millisecond.
Tags: ADA, American with Disabilities Act, Disability, Public Transit, Tranzlink, Vancouver, Wheelchair
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7 Comments
Having an ADA might not be the be-all end-all solution, but it’s still better to have SOMETHING (as you said, Chloe). Right now, if you were to ask the average Canadian what guidelines/policies there are to accomodate people with disabilities, you’d likely get a shrug and a murmured, “I dunno, who are you asking ME?” (Even I’m still fuzzy on the subject.)
If you ever come to the Vancouver area, be sure to find me. :)
Canada gets an ADA - gosh, it’s about time it does! I can’t believe Canada is that far behind many other countries in that respect. It’s a shame!
I just got back from two weeks in down-home provincial Spain, with a couple of days in Madrid. There seems to be a fair amount of awareness (e.g. reserved wheelchair space on every car of the excellent Madrid Metro system) but execution is sporadic and ultimately ineffective. I saw quite a few people on crutches, many with evidently permanent disability, but I don\’t recall anyone using a wheelchair independently.
5 On 28 August, 2008, Claire said:
An interesting article I came across…
Games play catalyst role: Access becomes focus
Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, August 27, 2008
For a country that prides itself on embracing people with disabilities, the oversight by the Canadian Olympic Committee to have wheelchair access at Canada Olympic House in Beijing served as a sharp reminder of the challenges the country faces as it prepares for the 2010 Winter Paralympics.
It was a small gaffe, noticed only by a few reporters and the entourage following Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan. And it was fixed swiftly by embarrassed COC officials who crafted a ramp overnight.
But the fact that the mayor, himself in a wheelchair, could not easily get access to Canada’s home-away-from-home caused him to muse about how Vancouver can’t make the same mistake in 2010…Full story >>>
That article shows the exact type of thing I’m whining about. There’s no real standard for accessibility to begin with, in Canada, so loopholes such as those tend to pop up.
I’ve always had the opinion, that instead of each country left to its own devices, it would be far greater to change things at an engineering standard. Just as there are standards with groups like the IEEE; why not create a standard for engineering accessability? That way from the begining, something is already planned to be accessable, instead of becoming an afterthought, or an additional concern. It would also be great if the U.N. would put a little more effort into making an international recognition for the need for accessability.
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1 On 26 August, 2008, Chloe said:
Most of us seem to be very passionate about accessibility rights. The ADA is better than nothing, here in the U.S.A., but it still provides a good deal less than equal access. I found out later on in my first wheelchair trip that the hotel restaurant that I dined at did after all have an “accessible” entrance, different from via the lobby and being confronted by stairs. However, nobody thought to tell me about this, and it was not visible from the top of the stairs. Moreover, to get there one had to go out of the main entrance, and wheel around to a different side of the building to enter. This would not be too much fun in a blizzard.
I told my disabled friend, who is paralysed from the waist down, about my week in a wheelchair. She knows full well that I don’t physically need a wheelchair, but not about the BIID. She expressed admiration for my taking on the challenge. She thought it was great that I was able to experience accessibility problems first hand, and point them out to hotel management, etc. She knows she has an ally.
Keep up the good work in Canada, Gordo! I may want to come visit you sometime : )