Accessibility News Blog

Lessons Learned from the Complete Streets Forum 2012

On Monday, April 23 the SPH team had the opportunity to attend the 2012 Complete Streets Forum, the goal of which was to "accelerate the implementation of Complete Streets across Canada." Several speakers from across North America delivered presentations on complete streets and other active transportation issues, while well known architect and urban designer Ken Greenberg chaired the forum and moderated discussions throughout the day.

Many of these presentations touched on important issues for people with disabilities. One of the highlights of the forum was the keynote presentation by noted walkability expert Dan Burden, who discussed best practices learned from his experience leading walkability audits throughout the world. In particular, he noted that when you have wheelchairs on the road, there’s a problem with your sidewalks. Earlier in the day John LaPlante, Vice President and Director of Traffic Engineering at T.Y. Lin International, shared examples of how to design streets to accommodate everyone, including people with various disabilities during his presentation “Laying the Foundation for Complete Streets.”

Other notable speakers included Monica Campbell from Toronto Public Health who discussed their recent report on The Walkable City (PDF), which focuses on the impact that walkability has on health, obesity, and other chronic conditions, as well as a controversial new report released the morning of the Forum titled “Road to Health: A Healthy Toronto by Design.”

A smaller breakout session on "Shared Streets and the Vision Impaired" focused on the City of Toronto’s experiences in planning new shared streets on John Street and Market Street, as well as the implementation of new separated cycling lanes on Sherbourne Street. Representatives from the CNIB were present and provided insight into the challenges faced by people with vision loss as they navigate our streets. A key issue is that shared streets typically remove an important element for people with vision loss: curbs. Without curbs, it can be difficult for people with vision loss to determine if they are still on the sidewalk or in the designated vehicle travel lanes, even if tactile markers are provided along the edge of the travel lanes.

During this session Boyd Hipfner, who is blind and has worked with the CNIB for over 40 years, discussed the challenge of training guide dogs to recognize truncated dome warning systems and other tactile markers. Given that guide dogs are typically trained to stop and wait for further instructions at curbs, it may be difficult to retrain guide dogs to also recognize the tactile warning features of shared streets where no curbs are present. This may be especially challenging for people with vision loss who are infrequent visitors to areas with shared streets, as their guide dogs may not get sufficient exposure to these different tactile warning systems. 

Weren't able to attend the Complete Streets Forum this year? Many of the presentations are now available online and can be downloaded at: http://tcat.ca/completestreetsforum2012/presentations

Accessible Parks and Playgrounds in Ontario

Accessible parks and playgrounds are set to become more common in Ontario in the coming years. Once formally enacted, the Accessible Built Environment Standard (ABES) under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) is expected to require that all newly built or substantially renovated playgrounds, meet or exceed the requirements of CAN/CSA Z614-07 Annex H, a standard that provides specific requirements for the design of accessible playgrounds in Canada. Currently, compliance with this standard is voluntary, although some municipalities such as Edmonton have adopted it as a formal policy. Complying with Annex H means that municipalities, school boards and other playground operators will need to upgrade their traditional playgrounds to be accessible when their current playground equipment needs to be replaced.

According to a recent Toronto Star article, the City of Toronto currently has two fully accessible public playgrounds, located at Oriole Park and Earl Bales Park (not including any playgrounds operated by school boards or other organizations).  Both of these playgrounds were constructed with the help of private donors as the City has decided to wait until the ABES requirements are finalized before proceeding with widespread accessible playground construction. In the meantime, according to a 2010 City Staff report the City has incorporated some accessible features, such as engineered wood fiber surfacing, into new and renovated playgrounds. A third fully accessible Toronto public playground, at Jeff Healey Park (formerly Woodford Park) in Etobicoke is currently in the design stages, while community members are currently raising funds for its construction. The City may also take the opportunity to make the Jamie Bell Adventure Park in High Park accessible when repairs are made following a recent arson attack on the play structure.

Meanwhile in Hamilton, Marydale Park is currently under construction by the Catholic Youth Organization of Hamilton. This new accessible park will offer numerous facilities including a playground, dock and fishing platform, swimming pools, playing field, picnic pavilions, and nature trails. The entire park and all of its amenities will be fully accessible for people of all ages and abilities. Elsewhere, other municipalities and groups are choosing not to wait until the ABES is finalized and are moving forward with accessible playgrounds. The federal government announced last week that the City of Oshawa has been awarded a grant from the Enabling Accessibility Fund to install new accessible playground equipment. In Caledon, the Town has installed a number of accessible playgrounds in recent years.

One major challenge with accessible playgrounds is their cost. Given that traditional sand or gravel playground surfaces are not accessible, any new accessible playgrounds must include more expensive engineered wood fiber or rubber surfaces, which can quickly drive up project costs. Accessible playground equipment can also be more expensive than traditional equipment. As a result, other organizations are taking a different approach. The Greater Essex County District School Board has closed many of their traditional playgrounds and is planning to replace them with naturalized, inclusively designed playgrounds, which will be accessible to people with disabilities. These playgrounds are more expensive to install initially, but will save money over the long term due to decreased maintenance costs.

Note: Updated April 25, 2012 to include additional information on the City of Toronto's accessible playground initiatives.

TTC’s Easier Access Program: Fully Accessible Toronto Subway by 2025

Slowly but surely, the Toronto Transit Commission’s (TTC) Easier Access Program is proceeding with a goal of making all subway stations accessible by 2025. This is a significant challenge for the TTC, as most Toronto subway stations were not initially designed to accommodate accessibility for people with disabilities. To be fully accessible, each subway station must be retrofitted to provide elevators to each subway platform, which is a costly task at older stations. Downsview Station, which opened in 1996 as the new terminus of the Spadina subway line, was the first TTC subway station designed from the start to accommodate accessibility for people with disabilities, followed by the Sheppard subway line in 2002. Since 1996, many TTC subway stations have been retrofitted with elevators and other easier access improvements, such as sliding doors and wider fare gates, for a total of 30 accessible stations as of 2012, or just under half of the system.

Accessibility improvements are currently in progress at several other stations: Pape, St. Andrew, Dufferin and Lawrence West stations are currently under construction with elevators and other easier access features scheduled to be completed in the next few years. Next up on the list is Coxwell Station on the Bloor-Danforth subway line. Scheduled for construction from 2013-14 this project will provide elevators from street level to both subway platforms as well as other improvements including accessible fare gates and automatic sliding doors. A preliminary open house was held this March with a second open house scheduled for the fall of 2012.

In other TTC accessibility news, all TTC bus routes have been 100% accessible since this past December while Toronto’s first accessible streetcar is scheduled to be in service by 2014. The new streetcars will be 100% low floor with wider doors and accessible ramps. Curb ramps will also be provided at stops where no platforms are provided.

For more information on the TTC's accessible transit initiatives visit: 

http://www.ttc.ca/TTC_Accessibility/Accessible_Transit_Services_Plan/Accessible_Service_Transit_Plan_2011.jsp

New Websites Map Accessible Restaurants and Attractions

Want to go out for dinner, but aren’t sure which restaurants can accommodate your mobility aid? Or maybe you’re looking for a theatre that offers assisted listening devices? Several new online tools have been launched in the past year that can help.

The Rick Hansen Global Accessibility Map (GAM) allows anyone to submit reviews and rate restaurants, theatres, stores, workplaces, and other buildings and public places, in a similar manner as travel websites like Yelp and Trip Advisor. The key difference with GAM is that users can rate these places on a scale of 1 to 5 from a perspective of mobility, hearing or sight. These reviews and ratings are plotted onto an easy to use map and can then be searched for based on location, categories such as restaurants, hotels, or museums, or by accessibility type (mobility, sight and hearing). While the GAM currently features ratings and reviews primarily from Canada, selected ratings are also available from attractions around the world such as the London Eye and the Louvre. Traditional web and mobile device versions of the GAM are available.

Another alternative is Wheelmap, which features 216657 places at the time of writing. In contrast to the GAM, however, Wheelmap currently focuses entirely on wheelchair accessible places. Users can rate accessibility based on three simple levels: yes, limited, or no, and can perform searches in a similar manner as the GAM. One particularly useful Wheelmap feature for public transit riders is the availability of accessibility ratings for public transit stops and stations. Wheelmap can be used through their website or through Android and iPhone apps.

A third site is Rollsquare, which is similar to Wheelmap and also focuses on wheelchair users. While Rollsquare currently only contains reviews for several (mostly) European cities, the developers of Rollsquare have indicated they are open to adding new cities in the future. 

Do you know of any other innovative accessible web apps like these? Follow us on Twitter @SPHAccess and let us know!

Baby Boomers Opt Out of Nursing Homes

As the baby boomer generation approaches retirement, the concept of traditional nursing homes is starting to fall out of favour. Many seniors would like to remain in their established communities and stay independent rather than move into an assisted living facility. One option that many baby boomers are taking advantage of is the opportunity to retrofit their current homes for easier accessibility. Commonly retrofitted elements include grab bars in washrooms and showers and creating “visitable” homes, which are homes where the first floor and at least one bathroom are accessible to people with mobility disabilities, including a zero-step entrance.

Technology also has a part to play in keeping boomers in their communities. Telemedicine is one example: in Ontario, the Ontario Telemedicine Network allows patients to have online appointments with specialists located anywhere in Ontario through a two-way video call from a local clinic, which makes life easier for patients who have difficulty travelling and also saves travelling time for patients. In some cases patients also be remotely monitored from home by their doctors through the internet

As discussed in our previous post on Age Friendly Communities, initiatives like Ontario’s recently passed Transportation Standard as well as the upcoming Accessible Built Environment Standard may also help baby boomers remain in their homes longer. While the Built Environment standard is not expected to include requirements for accessible private residences, it is generally expected to contain requirements to make other aspects of the built environment accessible, which would generally include all other newly built or renovated public or private buildings and outdoor sites such as parks, pathways, trails, etc.. This standard will go a long way to making it possible for baby boomers to stay in their communities without needing assisted living.

Michael Graves Takes on Health Care, Wants Better Universal Design

Michael Graves is a respected American architect who is well known for incorporating universal design into his buildings, and for his affordable line of practically designed household items that is sold at Target. Recently, the 2012 Driehaus Prize was awarded to Graves for excellence in architecture that “enhances the user experience,” and will be presented to him later this month.

One key area that Graves would like to change is the design of patient areas within health care facilities. While recovering from a rare infection that eventually left him paralyzed in 2003, Graves noted that "It's far too ugly for me to die here." The trend continued as he moved through eight different hospitals and three rehabilitation centres during his recovery, where design failures inhibited his ability to regain his independence. Simple tasks like turning on the hot water or reaching for toothpaste were impossible to accomplish while sitting in a wheelchair in the small, poorly designed patient rooms. In many cases, Graves believed that all the money had been spent on the public areas of these facilities, which tended to be beautifully designed, expansive works of architecture. As a result, Graves has committed to taking on the health care industry in an attempt to implement better design. One way he is doing this is by creating new products for hospitals, such as better designed tables and chairs for hospital rooms. Graves’ approach to better design may be working: one blogger from the Huffington Post believes that Graves is the “James Dyson of Healthcare.” 

Sidewalk Difficulties Faced by People with Disabilities

Inaccessible sidewalks are a significant barrier for people with disabilities. People who use mobility devices such as wheelchairs and scooters face rough rides when sidewalks are cracked and broken; in winter when snow and ice make some sidewalks impassible for wheeled devices; and especially when intersections lack curb ramps, which can make sidewalks completely inaccessible.

Sidewalks in disrepair are not just an issue for people with mobility devices, but for anyone walking down the street as well. It was reported recently in the Toronto Star that a simple cracked curb on King Street in Downtown Toronto, was responsible for a senior falling and breaking her wrist, necessitating months of painful recovery.

The situation is worse in suburban communities which often have inconsistent or completely missing sidewalks, forcing users to either share space with vehicles or attempt to navigate areas of grass or shoulders adjacent to the road that are not intended for pedestrians, let alone pedestrians with disabilities. However, adding sidewalks to streets that don’t currently have them is not as simple as it sounds. Residents of Scarborough’s Chine Drive have been fighting a proposal to construct a sidewalk on their street as part of a general street refurbishment project, even though it would provide easier access to a neighbourhood school for children in the surrounding community. Many of these children are currently driven to school due to the lack of sidewalks.

Looking abroad, the City of Los Angeles faces far greater sidewalk troubles: the city currently estimates that 42% of its 10,750 miles of sidewalks are in disrepair, with an estimated cost of $1.5 billion to repair and bring these sidewalks up to modern accessibility standards, including curb ramps at intersections. In addition, the City is currently facing four civil rights lawsuits that have been filed for failing to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

People with vision loss also face barriers when street intersections lack tactile walking surface indicators at sidewalk curb ramps or are not equipped with audible pedestrian signals. In Kitchener, ON, pedestrians with vision loss have argued that they are at risk due to the location of pedestrian crossings at roundabouts, as there is no way for them to tell when it’s safe to cross the street. Traffic experts have argued that while moving the crosswalks to be outside the roundabouts would make crossing the streets easier for people with vision loss, that they would actually put other pedestrians at greater risk.

One potential solution for people with vision loss is a new smartphone application currently being developed at the University of Minnesota. The application is able to tell users with vision loss which direction they are heading, what street they are on, how many vehicle lanes they have to cross at intersections, and also allows users to request a walk signal simply by pushing a button on the phone by tying into existing Accessible Pedestrian Signals.

Designing universally accessible, age friendly communities

As awareness of disability issues has grown over the past 20 years, generally coinciding with the passing of disability legislation in various jurisdictions, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (2005), it has also become apparent that many of our communities are not designed to accommodate people who fall outside the “traditional” able-bodied paradigm. In particular, this includes our ubiquitous post-war suburban environments, which have sprung up around nearly every North American city; however, examples of inaccessible design can be found in nearly every community, whether urban, suburban, or rural.

Key issues in these communities include missing or inconsistent provision of sidewalks and curb cuts, predominance of single-use developments, lack of or inconvenient public transit, and in general, is a lack of awareness for anyone who has trouble using the built environment. While this would include people with mobility disabilities, many others also have trouble navigating our streets, sidewalks, parks, and buildings, including people with various other disabilities (vision and hearing loss, mental health issues, etc.), seniors, parents with strollers, people with InvisAbilities, travellers, and so on.

In recent years, however, new concepts and theories, such as new urbanism, healthy communities, and smart growth, have all leapt to the forefront of urban planning, which, while not specifically focused on people with disabilities, all aim to reduce car dependency and create pedestrian friendly communities. For example, new urbanist communities such as Cornell (in Markham, Ontario), or Seaside, Florida have helped to redefine what is possible in a suburban development, while urban planning documents throughout North America are trumpeting the benefits of smart growth. Recently, however, as the general trend of longer life spans continues, and as the baby boomer generation continues to age, a new concept that specifically focuses on seniors has developed: age-friendly communities.

“Design for the young and you exclude the old; design for the old and you include everyone,” Bernard Isaacs

Essentially, age-friendly communities are communities that incorporate the concept of universal design, with a focus on seniors. The rational, as stated in the Bernard Isaacs quote above, is that designing for seniors will almost always accommodate everyone. As an example, minor built environment tweaks such as extending pedestrian crossing times at traffic lights by just a few seconds can have significant positive benefits for seniors, who typically walk at a slower pace than younger people, and which also make life easier for people with mobility devices, people with temporary disabilities (e.g., injuries), and people with vision loss.

Despite this, the concept of age-friendly communities is still relatively unknown, yet this is starting to change.  As reported this month in NOW Magazine, the Canadian Urban Institute has released a new report titled “Re-Positioning Age-Friendly Communities: Opportunities To Take AFC Mainstream”, which suggests a number of ways to bring this concept onto the radar of planning professionals.

The concept of age-friendly communities is closely related to Ontario's AODA Accessible Built Environment Standard, which is currently under development. Once finalized, this standard is expected to go a long way towards making new and substantially renovated built environments universally accessible and age-friendly, while the Transportation Standard (part of the Integrated Accessibility Regulation) which came into effect last year will provide significant benefits for seniors and everyone else who uses Ontario's public transit systems once fully implemented.

Rapid Transit Not Very Accessible, Riders with Disabilities Find

In Montreal, a human rights complaint was recently filed over the inaccessibility of the city's Metro subway system. Most of Montreal’s Metro stations are in deep tunnels underground, and so far only 7 of the 68 Metro stations are accessible to people with mobility devices. The lack of accessible Metro stations forces users to take adapted transit (which is not generally an option for visitors to the city), or wait for alternative surface routes which generally run far less frequently. In addition, maintenance and other issues often mean that riders with disabilities are left behind when attempting to ride surface routes: two thirds of buses surveyed in Montreal in September could not take on riders with disabilities due to issues such as inoperable ramps.

Accessibility issues are not unique to Montreal’s Metro, although accessibility improvements are generally progressing at a faster rate elsewhere. In Toronto, for example, 30 of the TTC’s 69 subway stations in Toronto are now fully accessible, and more stations are being retrofitted with elevators every year in order to meet the TTC's goal of making every station accessible by 2025. However, TTC riders are still struggling with the new “Toronto Rocket” trains on the Yonge-University-Spadina subway line that are not always level with the platform, which can create an insurmountable barrier for users with mobility devices, forcing these riders to wait until an older train comes along.

In a survey of subway systems around the world, Montreal’s metro ranked last in terms of accessibility. In comparison, London, which has one of the oldest subway systems in the world, provides step-free access to the platform at 63 of the Underground's 270 stations, with 100 stations slated to be fully accessible by 2020, while 89 of New York’s 468 MTA stations are accessible.

Despite the various accessibility issues faced by public transit riders, there are also plenty of examples of good public transit accessibility practices. In the Greater Toronto Area, both Toronto and Mississauga have recently retired their last non-accessible buses, while Toronto has also ordered new accessible streetcars and light-rail vehicles for delivery over the next few years. In Vancouver, the entire transit system, including the SkyTrain, is fully accessible. Another success story is the metro in Washington D.C., which is 100% accessible. In addition, when elevators are out-of-service for repairs in Washington, shuttle buses are deployed to ensure that riders with disabilities can easily get to the next closest metro station and board a train towards their destination.

New Technology May Curb Illegal Parking in Accessible Spaces

Despite the steep $450 fine for illegally parking in a designated accessible parking space in Toronto, misuse of these spaces is still a major problem, given that only a handful of spaces are typically available in any given parking lot. In July, for example, the Mayor noted that he saw drivers illegally parking in these spaces almost every day. However, if new technology that is currently being tested in the U.K. becomes widespread, the frustration of pulling up to designated accessible parking spaces only to find them occupied by illegally parked vehicles may soon be a thing of the past. Using technology similar to that found on modern electronic toll highways, a company from New Zealand has developed an electronic system to monitor accessible parking spaces. This system works by issuing drivers with disabilities electronic tags that are automatically read by sensors in each parking space. Should a driver park in a designated accessible space without a tag, parking officers are automatically notified and a ticket can be issued.

Other not quite as “high tech” solutions to the accessible parking problem are being proposed in jurisdictions around the world. In Alabama disability advocacy groups and the state’s Office on Disability are pushing for the state to introduce new measures to curb the practice of parking illegally in a designated accessible space, both by people who misuse state-issued accessible parking hang tags, and those who park with no hang tag at all. Suggestions include printing a photo of the applicant on hang tags, noting disability statuses on drivers’ licenses, and allowing trained volunteers to ticket illegally parked vehicles. In Chicago, high fines are the tool of choice, as the Chicago City Council recently approved a plan to charge up to $4,000 in fines plus vehicle impoundment for vehicles illegally parked in designated accessible parking spaces.