By Julie Afelskie
OC Transpo is discriminating against members of the disabled community by making it difficult — and even dangerous — for them to use the O-Train, advocacy groups claim.
Organizations such as Disabled and Proud and the Canadian Institute for a Just Society say they have identified problems including ramps that are considered too steep, missing push buttons and platform safety, but have been ignored.
“It makes me feel that we’re giving OC Transpo the information, but they just don’t want to hear it right now,” says Charles Matthews, president of Disabled and Proud.
“When it comes to weighing cost against benefit, unfortunately our accessibility issues get lost in dollar signs.”
Matthews says in November 2001 he grew tired of waiting for an accessibility assessment from the city, so Disabled and Proud decided to do its own. At the time, it found 37 barriers to accessibility, only three of which have since been fixed. Matthews says his group repeatedly complained to the city’s transportation committee.
OC Transpo, however, denies it has ignored the issue.
“We have demonstrated from the beginning of the project that we are aware of the disabled community in Ottawa and we will continue to put all of our efforts into making their travel by train easier,” says Mario Peloquin, manager of OC Transpo’s Light Rail.
But Peloquin says the O-Train is only a pilot project and major restructuring can’t occur until the pilot phase ends in a few years.
“That’s the oldest scam in the book,” says Terrance Green, a blind lawyer and president of the Canadian Institute for a Just Society. Green says OC Transpo is just using the pilot phase as an excuse to ignore the disabled community.
Green has experienced problems with the O-Train first-hand.
“Once I was left stranded on the Bayview platform at 11:30 at night. I was with my guide dog, but I wasn’t able to find the door to the O-Train before it took off.”
Green says the sides of the O-Trains are smooth, making the doors difficult to find.
He is also concerned a blind person might eventually fall off the edge of the platform because there is no way for a blind person to tell where the platform ends. Green says he hopes it won’t take a fatality to convince OC Transpo to install tactile markers at the edges of the platforms.
“I feel I’m being treated in a manner that’s less than other passengers,” says Green, whose advocacy group conducted an accessibility assessment for OC Transpo. Its response was, according to Green, to maintain the status quo.
Terry Ryan, a quadriplegic and frequent O-Train rider, says he is frustrated because the train has so much potential to help the disabled community, but not until major problems are fixed.
“I’ve already broken my neck once, and I don’t want to do it again,” says Ryan, who was left a quadriplegic after a 1981 motor vehicle accident.
Others in the disabled community have complained about the steep ramps such as the ones at Confederation Heights and Bayview. The grade of the ramps are so steep that, according to Ryan, wheelchair athlete Rick Hansen had trouble getting up the Confederation ramp when he visited Ottawa last summer.
Peloquin says the ramps won’t be changing anytime soon.
“These ramps have been built in compliance with provincial standards. As there would be an enormous cost to changing them, there’s nothing we can do until the pilot phase is over,” says Peloquin.
“My idea of a pilot project is that you fix the bugs,” says Matthews. “The O-Train will be a great service for the disabled once it’s made accessible. Unfortunately, at the present time, there are still many barriers.”