Montreal City Weblog

Kate 19:40 on 2019-06-22 Permalink Reply  

• Sprocket 20:50 on 2019-06-22 Permalink

  The water taxi? Really?

• Kate 20:59 on 2019-06-22 Permalink

  Evidently. The little ferry they’re doing between RDP and the Old Port. If they can’t fix up a ramp or the like they’d be wise to shut it down.

• Sammy 17:09 on 2019-06-23 Permalink

  Metro was inaccessible for most of its existence. Glad they didn’t think it was wise to shut down.

• Michael Black 17:35 on 2019-06-23 Permalink

  And yet, disaffection in recent years have made the point about the Metro. They aren’t happy and think things should change faster.

  They may making a point with the water taxi, objecting because they can’t use it rather than because they want to. Activism copies in many ways, there is always a hardcore.

  Michael

• Uatu 18:57 on 2019-06-23 Permalink

  I think they’re really annoyed that they had requested accessibility a long time ago, but were repeatedly brushed off with “we’re working on it” and nothing was ultimately done. It’ll have to be addressed eventually as Quebec will be a demographic of old, immobile cranks in the next 10-20 yrs.

• jeather 21:00 on 2019-06-23 Permalink

  So the argument with the metro was it was made during a different time, retrofitting is difficult and expensive, etc etc etc. And then — in a huge shock to presumably no one — NEW construction completely ignores accessibility concerns, when they could and should have been built in from the beginning (surely cheaper than retrofitting). Things aren’t going to be made accessible in our lifetime if people just ask nicely and keep waiting — you need to make a fuss and make it more expensive NOT to take it into account. Accessible design helps everyone.

• mare 23:04 on 2019-06-23 Permalink

  I had a American friend visiting who has cerebral palsy. She still walks on crutches for short distances and inside, but had rented a mobility scooter to get around town. I walked with her a lot and was appalled how inaccessible Montreal is. Almost all cafes and shops have at least one step, and sometimes many. Some have installed a little ramp but they’re often too steep to be safely passed by a mobility scooter because they don’t do slow speeds very precise. For her to find a wheelchair accessible toilet was extremely hard, only some hotels had one. Even some Starbucks locations, according to her a beacon of accessibility in other Canadian cities, had toilets that where too small to reach with a wheelchair.

  Once we really wanted to have lunch somewhere, but couldn’t find any spot so she parked the scooter and climbed the stairs on crutches. It takes her two minutes per stair step so there was an angry line up inside the restaurant of people wanting to leave and outside of people wanted to go inside. People wanted to ‘help’ her to make her go faster but she shouted them down because it is really dangerous if she loses her balance. “You can wait a few minutes, I sometimes have to wait a lifetime before I can get in somewhere.”

  Shops are also often not accessible. Coming from a country where shops can’t even open when they’re not ADA compliant she felt very unwelcome. Canada needs a law like that.

  When returning from abroad, but even coming from a visit of Ottawa, it always surprises my how few people in wheelchairs I see on the streets of Montreal, but now I understand a bit better why. It’s not only the metro that’s only partly accessible, getting an adapted taxi is also very hard since they’re all busy with pre-booked trips. I guess disabled people all live in the burbs and shop at malls. Booking transport via paratransit is a joke. You have to book a few days in advance and often can’t get the timeslot you want because the vans are busy shuttling daily clients to and from their work. Having supper with friends? Forget it.

• Kate 00:00 on 2019-06-24 Permalink

  In North American terms it’s an old city, and it’s never had the “benefit” of being partly bombed flat and having to rebuild. You’d close down most of the independent stores and corner deps if you enforced the kind of law you describe – only the wealthy chain stores could afford to make the required renovations and stay open.

  Some would say this is a reasonable tradeoff, I guess.

• jeather 09:25 on 2019-06-24 Permalink

  Argue all you like about whether old stores and restaurants should be grandfathered in, perhaps until they renovate, but this is not a story about an old building being inaccessible, it’s about a new thing being built inaccessibly.

  And yes, Montreal is not good for accessibility. (Though people have noted that not making individual owners/tenants clean sidewalks but having it done by the city IS a big boon for accessibility.)

• Kate 14:47 on 2019-06-24 Permalink

  Not really arguing, jeather. You’re quite right.

• Ant6n 05:54 on 2019-06-25 Permalink

  BTW, Montreal built inaccessible metro stations as late as the eighties. That’s inexcusable.