In Transit

By Aaron Broverman

Across Canada, millions of people depend on public transportation to get to work or school every day. It’s an unremarkable routine for most, but when you have a disability, getting from A to B can be complicated and frustrating.

Transit accessibility in major cities has improved in recent years, even if it is often at a snail’s pace. Transportation providers are purchasing low-floor buses that accommodate wheelchairs, retrofitting subway stations with elevators and adding vehicles to their paratransit fleets, for example. However, it’s not uncommon for people to be left without a ride for the day and, in places with poor transit accessibility, such as parts of the Maritimes and Saskatchewan, people with disabilities must either plan out their lives in advance in order to use a paratransit service or, in the worst-case scenario, stay home because they live outside the area serviced by accessible transit.

In this issue, Abilities takes a look at public and parallel transportation across the country to find out what’s available, where improvement is needed and who is changing things for the better, making Canada fully accessible to all.

BRINGING TRANSIT UP TO SPEED
In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that federal money be set aside for disability initiatives, including transportation. The government provides funding under this legislation to non-profit, public or private organizations that wish to create an accessible transit service for people with disabilities. The award amount is based on the population of people who have a disability or are elderly. The ADA also sets out rules for the purchase of new or used vehicles and the reconditioning of old vehicles, and has legally mandated manuals on design for accessible transportation. (To read more about the ADA, as well as the accessibility of the federal transport system in Canada, please see the article from the Council of Canadians with Disabilities on page 48.)

Disability advocates are pushing for a Canadians with Disabilities Act that would lead to similar standards in Canada and ensure that governments cannot use a lack of funds as an excuse for failing to make transit accessible. Currently, there is no regular source of funding for transit systems pertaining specifically to people with disabilities.

One of the most outspoken advocates is Warren Rupnarain, a 23-year-old social work major and electric wheelchair user. During the 2006 federal election, as part of a project with the Ontario March of Dimes, Rupnarain visited the campaign headquarters of candidates in the Toronto area. The goal was to increase accessibility awareness, but now his team is fighting for a Canadians with Disabilities Act. They pushed for it at Senator David Smith’s Celebration of Accessibility Gala held in April in Ottawa, asking MPs and senators, from Belinda Stronach to Ken Dryden, to pledge their support in bringing the bill to the house.

“Public transit is the highest-profile public sector and one that makes the most financial sense in terms of accessibility,” says Steven Christianson, government affairs coordinator for the Ontario March of Dimes. “Inclusion makes good economic sense. Give people the chance to participate, and you’ll have a stronger society and a stronger economy.” Rupnarain adds, “We’re not just talking about getting around – we’re talking about basic human rights.”

The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) agrees. On April 7th, it announced that, in cities where public transit is not fully accessible, paratransit is a legal duty. The OHRC had received complaints that municipalities, including Toronto and Hamilton, weren’t adequately meeting the needs of their paratransit clientele. A number of transit providers held the view that paratransit is a voluntary special program, a designation that would protect it from claims of discrimination. “This decision sends a message that the OHRC will no longer be entertaining that argument,” says Jeff Poirier, the OHRC’s manager of communications and public education.

The provincial government has lit the fire as well. Thanks to the new Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), which was passed in 2005 after years of lobbying by disability advocates and organizations, public organizations must be fully accessible within 20 years. If they refuse to comply, they could be hammered with heavy fines.

One of the first organizations under the gun was the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). It has already committed to a 100-percent accessible bus system by 2012. By the end of 2007, almost half of its subway and rapid transit systems (30 of 69 stations) will be accessible, with the rest made accessible by 2020.

While progress is being made, the TTC is not without its critics. They include Harry Gow, former president of Transport 2000, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving public transit and advocating for accessibility. Gow says it’s absolutely inexcusable that Toronto’s streetcars are still inaccessible – Europe’s system is 20 years ahead. The TTC has accessible streetcars in the works, but the system won’t be fully accessible until 2024, one year before the penalty phase of the AODA kicks in. Adapting the streetcars is in the last phase of that plan. “I’ll be 43 by then,” says Rupnarain. “What am I supposed to do while I wait—sit on my hands?”

The slow rate of conversion is mostly due to the city’s cash crunch. “Just one elevator costs three to four million dollars, and the city is still suffering from the deficit created by the Harris government,” said Bill Brown, Toronto’s Accessibility Advisory Committee chairman.

But even he, as a scooter user, agreed that’s no excuse. “If the government is so concerned about finances, maybe they should shoot every disabled citizen instead of providing adequate service, since it only costs $2.25 a bullet.”

PARATRANSIT PREDICAMENT
Given that Toronto’s transit system won’t be fully accessible for another 18 years and other provinces are at various stages of accessibility (see Cross-Canada Transit Check, right), many people with disabilities rely on paratransit (also called parallel transit). Most major cities provide paratransit in addition to municipal transit services. In some cities that do not have paratransit, people with disabilities use private services, such as Pat and the Elephant in Charlottetown, P.E.I., which provides affordable rides in accessible vans. Some provinces, including P.E.I. and New Brunswick, offer government subsidies for private organizations that wish to make vehicles accessible. In some communities, transportation for people with disabilities is supported in part by donations – the Rick Hansen Man in Motion Foundation, for example, has contributed funds to support a volunteer paratransit service in Edson, Alberta

The fare per paratransit ride mimics that of the conventional transit system in each city, ranging from $2-$4.50. Some systems offer reduced fares for seniors, discount books of tickets or punch cards, and reduced or free companion fares on paratransit.

Because of high demand and a limited number of shuttles, rides on paratransit must be booked in advance—the earlier, the better. Placing a request for a shuttle the way one might call for a taxi is still a dream. Saburah Murdoch of Toronto doesn’t use paratransit. “I boycott Wheel-Trans because there’s no possible way I can be spontaneous.” No wonder, since it serves more than 38,000 registrants with about 250 vehicles. Similarly, in 2004, the Sociütü de Transport de Montrüal (STM) paratransit service reported a ridership of 1.52 million trips with only 94 paratransit buses.

As demand rises, transport providers across the country, including the TTC, STM and Winnipeg’s Handi-Transit, are adding vehicles to increase capacity. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be enough, and patrons are sometimes left without a ride for the day.

Some cities are improving their booking systems to better meet riders’ needs. Toronto’s Wheel-Trans has an online trip confirmation system. In Edmonton, thanks to a new service model and technology, seven percent of reservations on the city’s Disabled Adults Transit Service (DATS) are made for later the same day. Dispatchers can quickly communicate cancellations to drivers through text messaging, which frees up space for additional passengers.

DATS is also spending $1.2 million on global positioning systems (GPS) for its fleet of about 150 vehicles. “It’s about improving reliability between our drivers and customers,” says DATS director Dennis Nowicki. “By being able to track our vehicles, we will be able to tell the customer exactly when their car will be there.”

Other systems, including Winnipeg’s Handi-Transit and Wheel-Trans, plan to add vehicle tracking equipment, partly as an anti-theft measure. In the next couple of years, DATS also hopes to add an interactive voice response system that will phone customers 15 minutes before pickup to let them know their ride is on the way.

Unfortunately, no amount of technology can expand the boundaries of paratransit services to outlying areas, since the spontaneity technology can provide is compromised when a client must transfer from one service boundary to another, such as from Vancouver to White Rock or Toronto to Vaughan, where the demand is also high, but the client base is smaller.

Quebec seems to have found an answer, filling the void for those clients who can use the regular transit service and prefer the door-to-door convenience of paratransit, but also desire the spontaneity and flexibility of a taxi. In areas such as St. Anne and Lachine, the province provides funding for economical taxi buses for door-to-door service. They work like taxis, but have low floors like accessible buses.

This hybridism of services is the beginning of the most progressive attitude towards accessibility: universal design. It’s something that Toronto’s Advisory Committee for Accessible Transportation (ACAT) is also working toward. In order to take some of the burden off Wheel-Trans, ACAT is looking at combining the service with conventional accessible transit services. It has already implemented Wheel-Trans drop-off points at accessible subway stations around the city. “We recognize that the population is getting older and that will put stress on the transit system, so we’d better starting thinking about more efficient and accessible ways for moving people around,” says Brown.

ALL ACCESS
Cities across the country are getting the message that accessibility for people with disabilities means improved accessibility for everyone. Municipal governments recognize that the population is aging and are looking at ways to improve accessibility. In Regina, Saskatchewan, for example, city officials are conducting a public review regarding snow removal on roads and sidewalks. “[The disability community] has voiced concerns around…[access to] low-floor buses,” says Dana Folkersen, Regina’s manager of community and social development. “If snow is not removed, then what’s the point?”

Vancouver and the rest of British Columbia’s lower mainland are taking the concept of universal design to a whole new level and are leaps and bounds ahead of every other major region in terms of accessibility.

At Translink, their transit provider, the concept of access for all has been seared into employees’ brains at the corporate level. “We know we’re going to be 100 percent accessible by 2009, but we’re always asking ourselves, ‘What can we do better?’” says Ken Hardie, Translink’s director of communications.

The city will host the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. It has undertaken a $4-billion transportation upgrade to expand its roads and rapid transit system. It also plans to convert Translink’s trolley fleet to low-floor, meaning that Vancouver can now move beyond accessibility in the physical sense and think more universally. (Read more about Vancouver transit in our interview with Mayor Sam Sullivan on page 36.)

Clive Rock, Translink’s director of strategic planning, says, “It’s one thing to think we know what accessibility is, and it’s quite another to go to the public and ask them,” so that’s exactly what they did.

Amelia Shaw, director of public consultation and relations, organized two public forums. The first one defined a transparent, personable and universally accessible vision of Translink, and the other defined how it should improve its current service.

Disability organizations, users with disabilities, senior citizens, non-profit organizations and employees attended. Suggestions included centralizing HandyDART (paratransit) dispatch instead of doing it by region, improving accessibility of stations, and including signage in SkyTrain stations that accommodate riders with hearing and vision disabilities. Finally, finding alternative funding streams for mandatory medical trips, such as dialysis sessions, would help free up space on HandyDART for more recreational trips for other riders.

With all of this feedback at their disposal, the Translink team went back to the drawing board to remodel their attitude to accessibility. They’re starting with an emphasis on training staff and station facilities, looking at all the best examples of everything accessible around the world, from signage to landings and even transit websites. They plan to release a report on training and facilities in late 2006 and to file reports on other topics broached at the workshops.

Making Vancouver’s transit system fully accessible is an enormous undertaking, but no one doubts that the payoff will be just as great, and that everyone in the city will benefit from Translink’s universal design.

“Accessibility needs to be brought up to speed,” says Rock. “We can no longer have the attitude that accommodation is something we have to do. It should be marbled through Canadian transit as second nature.”

Aaron Broverman is a journalism student at Ryerson University.

Bill Brown passed away in April, a few weeks after we interviewed him for this story. We send our sympathies to his colleagues, friends and loved ones.


CROSS-CANADA TRANSIT CHECK

VANCOUVER
Provider: Translink
Year fully accessible: 2009
Available accessible services: Buses, SkyTrain (rapid transit), community shuttle, HandyDART (paratransit), taxi
Planned additions: Buses, two rapid transit extensions (including one to the airport), accessible trolleys

EDMONTON
Provider: Edmonton Transit System (ETS) and Disabled Adults Transit Service (DATS)
Year fully accessible: 2012
Available accessible services: Buses, minibuses, LRT
Planned additions: Low-floor ramp on LRT, interactive voice response system

REGINA
Provider: Regina Transit
Year fully accessible: Not specified
Available accessible services: Buses, paratransit
Planned additions: Two or three low floor buses a year

WINNIPEG
Provider: Winnipeg Transit
Year fully accessible: 2012
Available accessible services: Buses, Handi-Transit
Planned additions: Articulated buses; accessible bus rapid transit (BRT) is a long-term goal

TORONTO
Provider: Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and Wheel-Trans
Year fully accessible: 2024
Available accessible services: Buses, subway, Wheel-Trans buses, taxis
Planned additions: Low-floor buses, new Wheel-Trans buses, automatic vehicle location on Wheel-Trans buses, computerized subway-stop announcement system, all subway/RT stations to become accessible

MONTREAL
Provider: Sociütü de transport de Montrüal (STM)
Year fully accessible: 2021
Available accessible services: Buses, subways, paratransit, two commuter train routes
Planned additions: Low-floor buses, three accessible metro train stations, elevators in metro stations

HALIFAX
Provider: Halifax Metro Transit
Year fully accessible: Not specified
Available accessible Services: Paratransit, buses, taxi
Planned additions: Articulated low-floor bus

ST. JOHN’S
Provider: Metrobus and Wheel Way Transportation Inc. through the Hub Community Centre for People with Physical Disabilities
Year fully accessible: Not specified
Accessible Service: Buses, paratransit
Planned additions: Unspecified